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Strata. Sieta Qntk

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Chinese religion throuaii Hindu eyes a st

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CHINESE RELIGION

THROUGH

HINDU EYES

CHINESE RElilGION

THHOVQH

HINDU EYES

A STUDY IN THE TENDENCIES OF
ASIATIC MENTALITY

BENOY KUMAR SARKAR

Translator of Sukra-mti (Hindu Kcouoraics and Politics), and Author of

The Positive Backgrou7id of Hindu Sociology,

The Folk-EAemeiit in Hindu Culture^ etc.

with an Introduction by

WU TING-FANG, LL.D.

Late Chinese Minister to U.S.A., Spain, Peru, Mexico and Cuba

S HC.A. N O- H A. I
THE OOM:iwa:BK,CIA.Ij PK,E3SS, ILitd.

1 S 1 6
Al.1. Rights Reserved

Price 6 Shillings </.t^.

DEDICATED TO THE SACRED MEMORY OF

kumAra-jIva.

(c A.D. 405)

A foremost Indian Educator of the age of Vikramadityan Renais-
sance, who carried forward the missionising activity of Em-
peror Asoka the Great (begun with Western Asia and
beyond) by bearing the torch of Hindu Thought
to the Far Eastern Cathay and thus became
instrumental in the establishment of Indian
hegemony throughout the Orient;

HIUEN THSAnG

(A.D. 602-664)

The great Chinese Master of Law, who, having studied Hindu Culture
in Tienchu (or Heaven, i.e., India) for 16 years (629-45) dur-
ing one of the most brilliant epochs of Indian Imperialism
under Hiirsha-vardhana and Pulakesin II., propagated
it extensively in his native land under the pat-
ronage of the mighty Tang Emperor Tai
Tsung (627-50) and thus laid the
foundations of a re-interpreted
Confucianism;
and

KOBO DAISHI

(A.D. 774—835)

The scholar-saint of Japan, who, inspired by the example of his

illustrious predecessor, Prince Shotoku Taishi (A.D. 573 —

621), devoted himself to Hindu vidyds (sciences) for

three years (804-6) in China, and became the first

native pioneer to propagate Indono Damashii in

the land of the K&mi, thereby developing in

manifold ways its infant civilisation;

By a Hindu Student of the institutions of
MEDIAEVAL ASIA

PREFACE

Neither historically nor philosophically does Asiatic mentality
differ from the Eur- American. : It is only after the brilliant successes
of a fraction of mankind subsequent to the Industrial Revolution of
the last century that the alleged difference between the two
mentalities has been first stated and since then grossly exaggerated.
At the present day science is being vitiated by pseudo-scientific
theories or fancies regarding race, religion, and culture. Such
theories were unknown to the world down to the second or third
decade of the 19th century.

Comparative Chronology and Comparative History will show
that man, as an economic, political and fighting animal, has displayed
the same strength and weakness both on the Asian theatre as well
as on the extra- Asian.

Comparative Iviterature and Comparative Art will show that man,
as "lover, lunatic and poet", has worked upon the same gamut of
passions from Homer to Maeterlinck as from the Pharaonic Book of
the Dead down to Gitajijali.

Comparative Philosophy and Comparative Metaphysics will show
that man, as positivist and mystic, has attacked the "problems of the
sphinx" in the selfsame way and with almost similar results under
the guidance of intellectuals from Confucius to Swami Vivek-ananda
as from Socrates to Bergson.

It has been held generally that the Orient is statical, and
that the dynamic doctrine of Change is essentially non-Oriental.
Thus, the following verses of Tennyson —

The old order changeth yielding place to new

And God fulfils himself in many ways

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world"
are supposed to embody exclusively the spirit of the Occident.

Let us, however, take a bit from the Mind of China, which is
the proverbial representative of "the unchanging East," and which,
besides, is known to be "sicklied o'er by the pale cast of the Con-
fucian tradition. " Even the Great Sage himself was an advocate of the
"new order." The second article in what may be regarded as the

XU PKEFACE

Educational Creed of Confticius is thus worded by Mr. Ku Hung-
Ming in his recent translation of the classic Ta Hsueh* :

"The object of a Higher Education is to make a new and better
spci,et5r:.(Ut.- peiDple); %,':;-;'.: ' '.■ ;-

,. An old cOm-aientar-y. explains what 'to make a ■ new and better
society,' means. : The following is , Mr. Ku's translation of the
explanation: ,;,',■ - - .,

,, , ,1. "The Inscription on the Emperor Tang's bath says; ' Be a
new man each day, from day to day be a new man, every day be a
new-map/ , ; , j ■

\2. . The , Commission of Investiture to, Prince Kang says:
' Create a new Society.' ,.?,,, ■

■ '3.~ The Book of, Song & says: 'Although' the Royal House of
Chow was on old state, a, new mission was given to it.' "

The, nature of .the relation between Order and Progress wis
also well known to the Hindu thinkers of the Mahabh&rata-aycl^,
Their Messianic conception, formulated in the- G&(J-section (6th
century B.C. — 2nd century B.C. ) of this literature is pre-,emineritly
dynamic. The doctrine of Yugdntdra, i.t. ''transformation of the
age-spirit' ' or " revolution in Zeitgeist, ' '. is recorded in the follow-
ing announcement of lyord Krishna regarding the occasions of His
advent into the world of man : ■

"Whensoever into Order
' ' Corruption creeps in, Bharata,

And customs bad ascendant be, ..;

, ' ■ — Then Myself do I embody. •

For the advancement of the good
And miscreants to overthrow
•< And for setting up_ the Order
Do I appear age by' age."
The Hindd' Messiah is Revolution, Progress and Optimism
personifiedV His was the .message of Change and Hope. The idea
of "God, fulfilling himself in many ways',' is thus neither an
Occidental patent nor a modern discovery.

/'Hi^^her Education i't)x&S'has.ghai Metcxixy, X)\.A., Shanghai, 1915). This
is one of the four books in the Confucian Bible and has been called The Great
il,^a^»z«^ by Dr. Legge in his translation; ' , ' .'

PREFACE Xlll

Comparative Anthropology and Comparative Psycliology will
show that man has everywhere and always been fundamentally a
beast, aad that beneath a superficial varnish of so-called culture
the ape and tiger" hold their majestic sway, — giving rise to
superstitions, prejudices, idolas and avidyas under different guises
and conventions. The brute-in-man is a fact, — the datum; but the
god-in-man is only an idea, — the ideal to be realised.

Comparative Religion and Comparative Mythology will show
that man in his desire to have " something afar from the sphere of
our sorrow" has everywhere had recourse to the same modus operandi
and has achieved the same grand failure which in his vanity he al-
ways chooses to call success. It would be found that, after all, divinity
is but an invention of human imagination, in fact, the first postulate
taken for granted. And on a broad view of all the forces that have
inspired and governed elan and activity, some of which are miscalled
religion, and some not, man has ever been essentially a pluralist and
an idolist.

If anywhere there have been people professing a so-called
monotheism in religion, a study of their daily life would indicate
that they' have been polytheists with vengeance in every other sphere
— indulging in thousand and one varieties, social, economic and
political. These varieties which take away the monotony of life and
give a zest to it, do not, "pragmatically" speaking, differ in the last
analysis from the varied rites and practices underlying a so-called
polytheistic faith. What the polytheists call religion, the monotheists
call culture. Life demands variety; culture, therefore, is varied.
If you abstract a millionth part of this kultur, e.g. , the unverifiable
hypothesis of man about God, and choose to call it religion, every
race can be proved to be monotheistic. But if you take the total
inspiration of a human being or the chart of the whole life that a
people lives, mankind has ever been polytheistic.

If, again, anywhere there have been people who have repudiated
idols in religion, a study of their heart and feelings, their daily
habits, their literary and artistic tastes, would indicate that they are
paying the debt to "old Adam" in the shape of hero-worship,
souvenir-cult, love-fetishes, "pathetic fallacy," mementos, memorials,

XIV PREFACE

relics, and what not. As formative principles of character, these
"charms" are of the same genus as images erected in the temples by
those who in their simplicity confess — ' ' We do not understand, we
love."

If there is superstition in the one fprm of pluralism and idolism
there is equal superstition in the others. These are really "human,
all too human." In fact, the greatest and most abiding of all super-
stitions in world's history has been the human demand for that
ambiguous term Religion.

Superstition is nothing but avidya or mdya, i.e., ignorance,
rendered perceptible. Emancipation from this has been the highest
ideal of man. The prayer of the most ancient Hindu Rishis or
"seers" was —

A-sato m& sad-gamaya,
Tamaso majyotir-gamaya,
Mrityor ma amritam-gamaya.

From the non-existent {i.e. transitory, unreal)

me to the ever-existent {.i.e. permanent, truth, or reality)
lead;

From darkness {i.e. ignorance)

me to light (j-e. knowledge) lead ;

From death me to immortality lead.
This has been the prayer of mankind ever since. Knowledge is the
only truth — the ever-existent reality — the light — immortality itself.
Whether it be called religion or not, man has ever wanted this
knowledge — sat, jyoti, amritam.

The modern world congratulates itself on the thought that the
Bastille of ignorance was demolished with the Papal Doctrine of
Infallibility. The flood of light that was being thrown on world-
questions with the discovery of Sanskrit in the 18th century certainly
heralded a new era. And the modern means of communication did
really bring world-sense home to seekers of truth. Comparative
philology, comparative mythology, and what Maxmuller hesitated
to call comparative jurisprudence, were the first fruits, — the Synthetic
Philosophy of Herbert Spencer, the Philosophy of History of Hegel,
and Comte's Positive Philosophy were genuine attempts in the direc-
tion of sat, jyoti and amritam.

PREFACE XV

The holy quest of " enlightenment" is, however, always baffled
by M&ras or Tempters. It is probably not given to man to have
complete enlightenment at any stage of his history. He
trusted God was love indeed
And love creation 's final law. ' '
But — " Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shriek 'd against his creed."

The old avidya has only changed its guise. The guise of the
modern idola or superstition has been the dogma : ' ' Nothing
succeeds like success." The successful races of the last three genera-
tions have been interpreting world-culture and human civilisation
from the standpoint of a new "infallibility." This is but the
modern version of the mediaeval Romanist theory.

The twentieth century demands a new synthesis, — a fresh
" transvaluation of values," and, as prolegomena to that, a New
lyOgic. A complete over-hauling of the whole apparatus of thinking
is urgently needed to carry forward the tendencies initiated by the
discovery of Kalidasa for world-literature and by the application of
steam to the furtherance of human needs.

The work owes its origin to the first two chapters which were
read before the Royal Asiatic Society (North China Branch) in
October, 1915, as "First Impressions of Chinese Religion," more than
which it does not claim to be. It was taken up at the kind sugges-
tion of the Society's learned Secretary and Editor, the most unassum-
ing sinologue, Rev. Samuel. Couling.

A few chapters were read before the " International Institute"
in connection with their studies in Comparative Religion. Rev.
Dr. Gilbert Reid, Director-in-chief of the Institute, has placed me
under great obligation by taking the trouble of interpreting the
lectures in Chinese for those who did not understand English and
also by publishing Chinese translations of the papers in the Institute
Magazine.

I have made frequent use of the "Christian lyiterature Society's'
Library, and take this opportunity of expressing my heait-felt thanks
to the Director-Emeritus, Rev- Dr. Timothy Richard, who has been

XVI PREFACE

prominent in the Far East, as being, among other thiiigs, a keen
student of Buddhism.

The Bibliography as well as the names of publications in the
Index will indicate the nature and amount of my indebtedness, both
direct and indirect. Footnotes with chapter and verse have, how-
ever, been avoided, as all interesting details, without which com-
parisons could not be instituted, have been given in full from the
works of well-known authorities.

For the benefit of those to whom China with four hundred
millions (?) and India with three hundred and fifty millions are still
only geographical expressions learnt from school primers I venture
here to single out two volumes :

1. Descriptive Sociology: Chinese — " compiled upon the plan
organised by Herbert Spencer" by E-T.C. Werner,— H-I.B.M's
Consul at Foochow, China (Williams and Norgate, London, 1910).
It is really an Encyclopaedia Sinica made up of extracts from about
200 English, French and German publications besides Journals, and
from over 700 Chinese works.

2. Early History of India (B.C. 600— A.D. 1200) by Vincent A.
Smith, late of the Indian Civil Service (Third Edition, Clarendon
Press, Oxford, 1914). This is the only authoritative and systematic
volume on ' ' the political vicissitudes of the land. " It is not a mere
compilation but the work of one who has himself been one of the
greatest figures in Indology.

A considerable portion of this work was published as articles in
" The National Review" (Shanghai), "The Hindusthanee Student "
(U.S.A.), and in the Indian periodicals,. " The Hindustan Review ''
(Allahabad), " The Vedic Magazine" (Hardwar), " The Collegian"
(Calcutta), and " The Modern Review" (Calcutta).

Dr. Wu Ting-fang, IvL.D., late Chinese Minister to Wash-
ington, D.C (U.S.A.), has kindly contributed his ideas on the
Religion of the Chinese in the form of an Introduction to this work.
The author is grateful for the favour thus accorded him by the
veteran Confucianist scholar.

Shanghai, China, )

March 9, 1916- ) Bknoy Kumar Sarkar.

INTRODUCTION

We often have visitors coming to China from Europe and
America on various missions ; some for scientific research ; some for
economic investigation ; some for educational purpose, and others for
art and general studies. It is the first time, if I am not mistaken,
that a gentleman from India has come to China for such a purpose.
Professor Benoy Kumar Sarkar is now on a visit to China to study the
religion, literature and social institutions of the people, and the result
of his earnest and laborious research extending over several months
is seen in the following pages. Whether the reader will follow him
and agree with all his views expressed in this book it must be con-
ceded that he has not hastily come to his conclusions without per-
sonal study. The mass of facts collected by him and his views
expressed thereon should afford the students of Sociology and Com-
parative Religion much food for thought and deserve their impartial
consideration-

What is the religion of your people ? ' ' This question has
often been put to us Chinese. If the answer "Confucianism" is
given, it will be most likely retorted that Confucianism is not a re-
ligion, it being a set of morals only. Now let us see what is Religion.
Webster defines it as " the outward act or form by which men in-
dicate their recognition of the existence of a god or gods having
power over their destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honour
are due. ' ' Then let us ascertain what Confucianism is. The doctrine
of the founder is to teach the duty and relations of man, between the
Sovereign and the subject, between the parent and the son, between
elder and younger brothers, and between friends; the "four books "
which practically constitute the canon of Confucian philosophy
minutely describe the sayings and instructions of the great philosopher.
His principal aim was to inculcate loyalty to the Chief of the State,
filial piety to parents and sincerity amongst friends. It must be
admitted that the result of his teaching has been on the whole
eminently successful. That he did not expressly instruct his disciples

XVlll INTRODUCTION

to worship God as enjoined by other religions cannot be denied; but
his tenets, if observed, would lead men to become good, for they are
in many instances along similar lines to the teachings given by other
religions. Take, for instance, the excellent rule laid down by Con-
fucius: — "What you do not want done to yourself do not do to
others." This is the golden rule only in a negative form- Thus it
will be seen that a real Confucianist is just as good a man as a
sincere Christian.

It is sometimes alleged that Confucius was an atheist or a
materialist; this accusation is not just considering that he believed in
the existence of a Supreme God. In the " Classics " there are many
passages which prove this. On one occasion when he was very sick,
one of his disciples asked leave to pray for him, he answered that it
was scarcely necessary because he had been praying for a long time.
On another occasion he exhorted his disciples to shew respect to
spiritual beings; then again he declared that to ofEer sacrifice to spirits
indiscriminately is flattery. In ancient times, as it was customary
in every nation, the people were superstitious and naturally re-
ligious. Confucius, being brought up under these surroundings,
could not help being influenced by them, but he had the sagacity to
warn his disciples that while respecting spiritual beings they should
keep aloof from them. He considered his mission was to make men
morally good and he did not consider it his duty to interfere with
spiritual and theological subjects. It may be asked that if he really
believed in the existence of the Supreme God to whom obedience,
service, and honour are due, how is it that in all his lectures to his
disciples he did not touch upon the subject of religious piety and
service to God? The reason is not far to seek. He was a staunch
conservative and an ardent admirer of antiquity. In his dialogues
he is seen expounding his views upon the duty of not only shewing
obedience to parents and to ruler but also reverence for antiquity and
strict adherence to the traditional usages of ceremony. The direct
worship of God was confined in the ancient religion, as it has always
been, to the Sovereign as the parent and priest of the people, so it
was not a subject that he as one of the "governed'' should touch
upon. His silence on this point should not be construed that he was
an atheist or a materialist.

INTRODUCTION xix

About the^ame time, or a little before there arose a great figure
who was a contemporary of Confucius and who founded the religion
of what is called ' 'Taoism." The founder was Lao Tan arid generally
known as Lao Tsze, and the book left behind by him which was his
own composition, is' well known as Tao Teh King, It contains
only five thousand words but it is fully of gems. This work contains
in substance his views on philosophy and expresses fully his doctrine.
The author, it must be remeinbered, was a mystic, he expresses his
views in symbolical and paradoxical language. His diction is simple
but enigmatic in style. It is extremely difficult even for an earnest
student to grasp his real meaning. It is generally supposed that his
doctrine is Inaction, but this is not actually the case. He did not
advise men to remain inert and do nothing, what he did advise was
to purify the mind and cultivate a clear conscience. Its gist is reason
and virttie, in other words, he exhorted men to distinguish between
the real and the iinreal and to perceive things in their proper light.
His mode of teaching is different to that of Confucius., He holds
that nature provides an ample lesson for man to study and he takes
for instance the vegetable kingdom as his ideal.- He advocates in-
trospection for the purpose of self-reformation. He was opposed to
the way of Confucius who was constantly on the move from one state
to another with the view of inducing the chiefs of the state to employ
him or to adopt his principles. In an interview sought by Confucius
who praised reverence for the sages of antiquity he did not scruple to
speak out his mind : " Those whom you talk about are dead,
and their bones are mouldered to dust ; only their words remain.
When the superior man gets his time, he mounts aloft ; but when the
time is against him, he moves as if his feet were entangled. I have
heard that a good merchant though he has rich treasures deeply
stored, appears as if he were poor, and that the superior man whose
virtue is complete is yet outwardly seeming stupid. Put away your
proud air and many desires, your insinuating habit and will. These
are of no advantage to you. This is all which I have to tell you."
His deep and abstruse theory even Confucius was unable to under-
stand, for soon after the celebrated interview he addressed his dis-
ciples, saying : "I know how birds can fly, how fishes can swim, and
how animals can run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer

XX INTRODUCTION

may be hocked, and the flier may be shot by the arrow. But there is
the dragon. I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the
clouds, and rises to heaven. To-day I have seen Lao Tsze, and can
only compare him to the dragon." It is not strange that the deep
doctrine of Lao Tsze has been misconstrued. The latitude allowed
by the vagueness of his writings enabled and encouraged his disciples
and adherents to graft upon the leading notions of his text, an entire-
ly adventitious code of natural and physical philosophy which, on the
one hand expanded into a system of religious belief, and on the
other became devoloped into a school of mysticism apparently founded
upon the early secrets of healing and divination. Nevertheless, Tao
Teh King is a marvellous and unique production of a Chinese
philosopher who flourished twenty-six centuries ago. It has excited
the admiration and appreciation of the oriental scholars who have
studied his pages. Victor von Strauss says that it contains ' ' a grasp
of thought, a height of contemplation, and a purity of conception in
the things of God such as we seek in vain anywhere in pre-Christian
times except in the Jewish Scriptures." According to Dr. Paul
Carus, " Lao Tsze was one of the greatest men that ever trod our
earth, one of the most remarkable thinkers of mankind. The Tao
Teh King is an indispensable book and no one who is inter-
ested in religion can afford to leave it unread." No wonder Lao Tsze
is greatly revered in China and his doctrine has been accepted by a
large majority of the Chinese.

Numerous European translations of the Tao Teh King have
been made from time to time by eminent Oriental scholars. They
must have spent much valuable time and mental labour in poring over
this terse and obscure work and great credit is due to all of them.
But to understand the mystic author and not to misinterpret his
meaning, it requires a mystic translator and the publication of another
translation by Mr. C S. Medhurst who is well versed in mysticism is
a welcome and valuable contribution.

There is another religion which must be mentioned although it is
of foreign origin. Buddhism was imported to China in the year A.D.
61 . It was done at the instance of the Emperor who had dreamt of a
gigantic image of gold and had sent imperial messengers to India in

INTRODUCTION XXI

search of this new religion: It is said by some that it was known in
China before that time. The first century of its arrival was marked
by numerous translations of Buddhistic works into Chinese. Under
such favourable auspices it attracted universal attention in China ;
the people were eager to learn its tenets and many became proselytes.
It was said that in the fourth century nine-tenths of the inhabitants
of China were Buddhists. It is not surprising that this later religion
has made such wonderful rapid progress in China. iThe principles of
its doctrine are so grand that no earnest student could help being
captivated by it. The teaching is suited to the literati and the illiterate,
and the law of Karma and the hope of eternal bliss are so beautiful
that nearly all the women of China are believers. The observance of
formal rites and other external practices are contrary to the spirit of
the doctrine.

Coming back to the original question, ' ' What is the "religion of
the Chinese? "the answer can be given in a few words. Confucianism
is acknowledged by almost every Chinese ' to be his creed. He is,
however,, practical and broadminded enough not to be opposed to,
but most friendly to, any other religion which he thinks can be of
benefit to him. It is therefore taken for granted that Confucianism,
Taoism, and Buddhism form a combination of his religion. Let us
take the case of an ordinary Chinese family. When the head of the
family dies, the funeral services are conducted in a most cosmopolitan
way, for the Taoist priests and the Buddhist monks as well as nuns
are usually called in to recite prayers for the dead in addition to the
performance of ceremonies in conformity with the Confucian rules of
propriety. The general idea is that there are several ways of ascend;
ing.to Heaven or the place of happiness; and if the deceased should
not succeed by the Confucian ladder, he can take either of the other
two.

TJie long existence of ancient China as a nation has generally
been attributed by Christians to its obedience to one of God's ten
commandments which is ' ' Honour thy father and thy mother that
thydays may be long in the land." I believe, however, that is not
the only cause. Toleration of religious .beliefs and the embracing
of three rieligions have done much to keep China coherent and

icxu Introduction

hitact. This tiiay appear to be paradoxical, but if I read the history
of the world aright, a iiatioh embracing one solitary religion, however
excellent it might be, and prohibiting all others is not likely to exist
permanently. The people of such a nation are naturally narrow-
minded and bigoted, and believing that their religion is the best in
the world, they are self-sufficient and intolerant, and will not condes-
cend to hear or learn better religious truths. When the people are in
such condition, theii" mental activity lies dormant and their minds
are stagnant and instead of progressing they will degenerate, hence
the downfall of the nation is natural.

It may be contended that the fact of a nation having a State
Rel,igion should induce its citizens to become more religious and
orderly. This opens a big question which I do not wish to discuss
at length. It may be conceded that a State Religion from some
point of view may possess certain advantages; but if it is looked
at in its larger aspect, it is open to grave doubt whether it works
for the ultimate good of the nation. It confers special privileges
such as eligibility for office; and people with no strict moral principles
would not scruple to become members of the 'State Church for self-
interest. It curbs freedom of thought and compels people to be sub-
Servieiit to the Church on religious matters, even against their better
judgment.

It should be remembered that a religion cannot monopolize all
the truth; at best it is like a spectrum presenting one side of it. The
founder of every good religion promulgated certain portions of the
truth to suit the conditions and habits of the people and it will be too
presumptuous to assume that one religion contains whole truth.
Truth is like light, men first used oil to light their houses and then
they manufactured candles and used them. Recently gas was in-
vented and we now have electric light. Should we still be contended
■with the light supplied by oil or candles and reject the ■ brijghter
illumination furnished by gas or electricity ? lyight is open to all, so
is truth. Truth cannot be exhausted: like a deep bottomless spring
or well,, the lower we go the more water we find. We cannot
have enough of the truth, the more we investigate and discover, the
better it is for mankind. The wise mau will use the light he has to

INTRODUCTION

xxm

receive more light. He will constantly advance to the knowledge
of the truth.

China, as it is well known, has been exceedingly conservative,
but with respect to religion she has not been stubborn and exclusive,
she has not waged war on account of any religious faith, and so far
as I can remember, she has not spilt a drop of blood on that account.

In addition to three religions above mentioned, Muhammadanism
has a firm hold in China; and many millions of her inhabitants are its
believers. Then again, Christianity is not only tolerated but openly
preached everywhere and Christian missionaries are found in every
province of China. Toleration of every creed is her policy and we
welcome all messengers of good religions who preach the eternal
truth. We hope the day will soon come when the believers and
adherents of all religions and creeds not only in China but in all
other nations of the world will live in peace and concord without
malice or hatred.

With these few words on the Religion of the Chinese I have
great pleasure in introducing this Hindu Study in the Tendencies of
Asiatic Mentality to the students of Chinese civilisation.

Shanghai,
Feb. 29, 1916

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Introduction by Dr. Wu Ting=fang
Bibliography . .

PAGE

xvii

xxix

- CHAPTER I
The Hypothesis

CHAPTER II

The Cult of World=Porces in Pre=Confucian China and

Pre=Sakyan India ( B.C. 700)

Yajna (Sacrifice) . .
Pitris (Ancestors)

(«)
(3)
(^)

ie)

(/•)
(g')

Sdnatanism (Eternal Order)

Ekam (The One Supreme Being)

Pluralism in God-lore

Folk-Religion

Idealism as a phase of spirituality

"Through Nature up to Nature's God"

CHAPTER III
Confucius the historian and Sikyasimha the philosopher

Section 1. Aufklarung in Asia — The Age of Encyclopaedists

(7th-5th Century B.C.)

Section 2. Confucius and Sakyasimha in Contemporary Asia

{a) " Higher Criticism"

( 3 ) The Peers of Confucius . . • • ,

Sectiop 3. development . pf Traditional Socio-Religious Lite

{a) Relativity of Religion to Environment. .

{b). Chinese Religion in the Age of Confucius

( c ) Indian Religion in the Age of Sakyasimha . . ,' • •
Section 4. Asiatic Positivism' . . .'. •■ •• • • .- ••

6
11
13
15
20
25
29
31

41
44
50

53
57
65
73

XXVI

CONTENTS

,CHAP,TE,R IV"
The Religion of Empire^Building — Neutrality and Eclecticism

(B.C. 350—100 B.C.)

Sectiotf 1. The Political -yJ/t'&M '

■ " (a) Imperialism and'Laiss'er jFaire. . ' .."'.. .. 80

(5) Hitidn Bus/lido a'ad /ndo7to Damaskii •• •• 85
Section 2. Ihternatioiialis'm

(a) Western Asia and India • • • • • • • • • ■ 92

r (d) Central Asia and .China ... ... .. .. ■• 96

Section 3. General Culture

(a) Physical and Positive Sciences ^ . . . . . . . 101

C3) Metaphysical Thought •:. . ..106

{c) Idealism and Supernaturalism in Literature .. .. 110

■ CHAPTER' V
. ,. ^ ■ ■ ■ ^-

The God^Iore of China and India under the First Emperors

(B.C. 350-100 B.C.)

Sectio°ri 1. Progress in Hagiolo^'y and Mythology

(h) InVentiofi "of New Deities '.. .. .. .. 116

(?) Siniultarie'ous Development of Diverse God-lores • . 120

{c) Deification of Men as ^z/aMrfl.y . . .. .. .. 124

Section 2. Images as Symbols

(«) In China 128

(6) In India 133

' CHAPTER VI
The Birth of Buddhism (B.C. 150— A. D. lOO)

Section- 1. Introduction of Buddha-Cult into China

(a) Chinese Romanticism • . . . • . . . • . 138

{d) The Religion of I,ove . . • . . 141

Section' 2. Exit Sakya, Enter Buddha and His host

(a). The, Psychology of. Romantic Religion .. ...)l45

(.d) SpirituaLExperience of Iran and Israel .. .'. 147

} (e). Buddha-oult and .its Indian "Cognates" '.. .... "149

CONTENTS : XXVll

Section 3. The "Balance of Accounts" in International
Philosophy

(a) Rival Claims of the Ea^ and the West . . . • 152

id) Par.allelism and ''Open Questions" .. ... .. 157

Section 4. The "Middlemen ". in Indo-Chinese Intercourse

(a) The Tartars- in World-History- .. ■ .. .... 161

(i) The Indo-Scythian (Tartar) Kushans.. •• •• 163

CHAPTER VII "
A Period of so=caIled Anarchy in China (A.D. 220-618)

Section 1. Comparative Chronology and Comparative History 168

Section 2. Chinese Religious Development . • . . . . 172
Section 3. " Confucianism," Buddhism," " Buddhist India,"

" Buddhist China" ..175

Sectioji 4. The Pioneers of Asiatic Unity ... . . . . 180

- , . „ ' CHAPTER VIII

The Beginning of Hindu Culture as WorId=Power (A.D. 300-600)

Section 1. Indian Napoleon's Alexandrian March .. .. 184

Section 2. "Wprid-sfefise " and Colonising Enterprise .. 189
Section 3. A Melting-pot of Races

(a.) Capacity, for Assimilatipn ... . . . . . . 192

((J) Tgntarisation of. Aryanised Djr^ividiafls . . , •• .. 195

, (^-) Caste-System and Military History . . ... . . 203

Section 4. .A Well of Devotional Eclecticism — The Religion;
of the Puranas

(a) Pauranic Synthesis •• •• •• •• •• 2C8

, (/50 Jajnisin .. •• •• •• •■ •• •• 210

(d) Vaishnavism •• •• •• •• •• •• 213

(e) Buddhism mixed up with other isms 216

Section 5. The Age of Kalidasa

■ '- (tt) Renaissance and the iVaz/ara/zia •• ■• •• 217

{6} Kalidasa, the Spirit of- Asia ■■ •• • 225

xxvui

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX
The Augustan Age of Chinese Culture (A. D. 600-1250)

Section 1, The Glorious " Middle Ages " of Asia

{a) Enter Japan and Saracen •• •• •• •• 230

(3) Expansion of Asia •• •• •• •• .. 233

Section 2. San-goku, i.e., " Concert of Asia "

{a) The World-Tourists of Mediaeval Asia 236

^b) Si"no-Indi6, Sino-Islamic, and Sino-Japanese Sea-borne

Trade 241

Section 3. The " Great Powers " of San-goku

Section 4. Indianisation of Confucianism •• .• •• 250

Section 5. " Ringing Grooves of Change " in Asia . . . . 256

CHAPTER X
Japanese Religious Consciousness

Section 1. Toleration and Liberty of Conscience - . . . 262

Section 2. Shinto-, "the so-called Swadeshi Religion • ■ • • 266

Section 3. The Cult of World-Forces in the Land of Kami . . 271

Section 4. The Threefold Basis of Asiatic Unity • - . . 276

Section 1
Section 2
(«)
(5)
{c)
{d)
Section 3

Section 4
Section 5

CHAPTER XI
Sino=Japanese Buddhism and Neo^Hinduism

. The Alleged Extinction of fiuddhism in India

The Bodhisattva-cult in China, Japan and India
Ti-tsang ■■..'..
Jizo ....
Avalokiteswara
Moods of Divinities

The Buddhism of China and Japan euphemism for

■Shaiva-cum-Shaktaism . .

Neo-Hinduism in Trans-Himalayan Asia . .

Modern* Hinduism ■ . . • . . • • . .

" ' ° CHAPTER XII

Epilogue :
,, The.Study of Asiatic Sociology

Index .

281

283
285
287
289

291
296
298

304
307

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aston — Jhe Nihongi (Kegan Paul, London, 1896)

— Shinto the Way of the Gods (Longmans, London, 1905)
Avalon — Principles of Tantra (Luzac & Co., London)
Bacon — The Making of the New Testament (Williams and Norgate,

London)
Barnett — The Heart of India (Murray, London, 1908)
Bartholomew — (l) A Literary and Historical Atlas of Asia (Dent,

London) (2) An Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography

(Dent, London) (3) A Literary and Historical Atlas of Europe

(Dent, London)
Beal — Buddhist Literature in China (Trubner, London, 1882)
Bergen — The Sages of Shantung (Reprint from Shantung, C. L- S.

Book Depot, Shanghai, 1913)
Bhandarkar — Vaishnavism, Shaivism and Minor Religious Systems of

India (Encyclopaedia of Indo-Aryan Research, Strassburg, 1913)
Binyon — Painting in the Far East (Edward Arnold, London, 1908)
Broomhall — Islam in China (Morgan, London, 1910)
Chamberlain — Kojiki (Asiatic Society of Japan, Tokyo, 1906)
Chariar — The Vaishnavite Reformers of India (Madras)
Charles — Between the Old and the New Testaments (Williams and

Norgate, London)
Coomaraswamy — The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon (Foulis,

London, 1913)
Cranmer-Byng — A Lute o//a^<f— Selection from the Classical Poets

of China (Murray, London, 1913)
Douglas— Oz«« (The Story of Nations Series, 1912)
Edkins — Chinese Buddhism (Trubner, London, 1893)
Eitel — Chinese Buddhism .(Trubner & Co., London, 1888)
Fenollosa — Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art (Heinemann,

London, 1913)
Getty Mrs. — The Gods of Northern Buddhism (Clarendon Press,

Oxford, 1914)

XXX BIBLIOGRAPHY

Giles — History of Chinese Literature (Heinemann, I^ondon, 1901)

— Religions of Ancient China (London, 1905)

— Confucianism and its Rivals (Hibbert Lectures for 1914)
Govindacharyya — Life of Ramdnuja (Murthy, Madras)
Gowen — Outline History of China (Werner Lawrie, London)
Griffith — Idylls from the Sanskrit (Panini Office, Allahabad, 1912)

— Specimens of Old Indian Poetry (Panini Office, Allahabad,

India, 1914)
Groot — Religion in China (Putnam's Sons, New York, 1912)
Growse — The RdmayanX of Tulsidds (Government Press, Allahabad)
Griinwedel — Buddhist Art in India (Bernard Quaritch, London,

1901)
Hackmann — Buddhism as a Religion (Probsthain, London, 1910)
Harada — The Faith of Japan (Macmillan, 1914)
Hirth — Ancient History of China (Columbia University, New York,

1908)
Hirth and Rockhill — Chau-fu-Kua: His work on the Chinese and Arab

Trade in the 12th and 13th centuries entitled " Chu-fan-chi."

(Imperial Academy of Sciences, Petrograd, 1911)
Hogarth — Anciejit East (Williams and Norgate, London)
Holderness — Peoples and Problems of India (Williams and Norgate,

London)
Howorth — History of the Mongols (Longmans, 1876)
Jackson — Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (Columbia University,

New York, 1899)
Johnston — Buddhist China (Murray, London, 1913)
Journals — Asiatic Society of Bengal (Calcutta)

— Bangiya Sahitya Parishat (Calcutta)

— China Review (Hongkong)

— Chinese Repository (Canton)

— The Modern Review (Calcutta)

— The Ostasiatische Zeitschrift (Berlin)

— Peking Oriental Society (Peking)

— Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (London)

—Royal Asiatic Society (North China Branch, Shanghai)

BIBI^IOGRAPHY XXxi

Ku nnng-Ming—TAe Universal Order or Condzid of Life (Shanghai
Mercury, Ltd., Shanghai, 1906)

— The Spirit of the Chinese People (Peking Daily News, Peking,
1915)

Law Narendra — Ancient Hindu Polity (Longmans, London, 1914)

Legge — The Chinese Classics (Trubner and Co., London, 1876)

• — The Religions of China (Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1880)
— Travels of)^a Hien (A.D. 399-414) (Clarendon Press, Oxford
1886)

Lloyd — The Creed of Half fapan (Smith Elder and Co., London, 1911)

Macdonell and Keith — Vedic Index (1912).

Macnicol — Indian Theism (Oxford University Press, 1915)

Mookerji — History of Indian Shipping (Longmans, Green and Co.,
London, 1912)

'yioxrxson.— The Jews under Roman Rule (Fisher Unwin, London)

Moulton — Early Religious Poetry of Persia (University Press, Cam-
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Nanjio Bunyiu — A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Bud-
dhist Tripitaka, the Sacred Cano?i of the Buddhists in China and
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(Harrap, London, 1913)

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1909)

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Ragozin— Vedic India (The Story of the Nations, Second Edition)

Ranade — Rise of the Mdrdtha Power (Bombay)

Rapson — Ancient India (Cambridge, 1914)

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,, ,, Mrs. — .^M^flf^wOT (Williams and Norgate, London)

Richard — The New Testciment of Higher Buddhism (T. and T. Clark,
Edinburgh, 1910)

XXXU BIBLIOGRAPHY

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— The Positive Background of Hindti Sociology (Panini Office)

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— Yoga Philosophy (Panini Office, Allahabad)

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2. Haraprasad Sastri (Mahayanism and Mediaeval Buddhism)

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Yule — Travels of Marco Polo (Murray, London, 1903)

CHIlSrESE HELiaiOI^

THROUGH

HIISrDU EYES

CHAPTER I.
The Hypothesis

Prof. Dickinson, one of the latest Knglish travellers in
India has declared in his Appearances that the Hindus are
the most religious people in the world. And Prof. Giles com-
mences his Hibbert Lectures published just a few months ago
under the title, Confitcianism and its Rivals^ with the state-
ment popularised by more sinologue than one that the
Chinese are not and have never been a religious people.
According to one observer the genius of the Hindu race is
essentially metaphysical and non-secular; according to the
other the Chinese are a highly practical nation without any
other-worldty leanings. The people of India are said to
cultivate excli:sively the thoughts and feelings based on the
conceptions of the Bternal, the Infinite and the Hereafter ;
whereas with the people of China ' ' the value of morality
has completely overshadowed any claims of belief ; duty to-
wards one's neighbour has mostly taken precedence of duty
towards God."

And yet the whole literature of Europe relating to
foreign countries from Pliny to Tavernier, nay, from Megas-
thenes to Clive, bears unmistakable evidence of the secular
achievements and material progress, and of the delight in the

^ CHINESE REWGION

finite things of this world which the western travellers noticed
among the people, of Hindusthan. From their historic
reports one knows really very little of the so-called trans-
cendental and pessimistic beliefs which modern tourists seem
to find in India. And as for the religious indifTerentism of
the Chinese and their tabooing of the unseen, the ideal and
the supernatural, Giles' eight Lectures would bias the reader
to a thoroughly contrary view ; for it seems to me, a novice
in things Chinese, that the whole work of the veteran
Professor is intended to be a refutation of the paragraph
with which he begins his interesting survey. Leaving aside
for the moment the Taoistic, Buddhistic and post-Buddhistic
strands of religious belief in China, one cannot but be
impressed, if one were to follow Giles, with the vast amount
of influence that the Sviper-natural and the Unknown have
exerted on ancient Chinese life as manifested in pre-
Confucian and Confucian literature.

In his third lecture Giles is his own critic and estab-
lishes the falsity of the universally recognised opinion when
he remarks: " Confucianism has often been stigmatised as
a mere philosophy, inadequate to the spiritual needs of
man : the last words, however; of the above quotation go far
to show that the cultivation of rectitude is, according to
Confucian teachings, broad based upon the will of God."

The quotation is from Mencius : " He who brings all
his intellect to bear on the subject will come to understand
his own nature; he who understands his own nature will
understand God. To preserve one's intellect, and to nourish
one's nature — that is how to serve God. To waste no
thoughts upon length of life, but to cultivate rectitude — that
is to do the will of God."

THE HYPOTHESIS ^

This evidence from the Confucian camp about Chinese
godlore is, however, not at all extraordinary. Giles himself
has furnished numerous instances which go to prove that
the agnostic or positivistic apotheosis of the actual, the
practical and the worldly is not the exclusive feature of
religious life and thought in China, but only one of the
aspects or expressions of Chinese mentality, of which too
much has been made by scholars. Rather, as one beginning
the A. B. C. of a new subject, I am tempted to add to the
stock of superficial analogies and parallelisms obtaining in
the world of letters, with the hypothesis —

(1) That the trend of religious evolution in India the
so-called land of mystics and China known to be the land of
non-religious human beings has been since pre-historic
times more or less along the same lines ;

(2) That the importation of Buddhism (A.D. 67) into
the land of Confucius from the country of ' western bar-
barians ' did not create the cultural and socio-religious
afl&nit}' between the two peoples for the first time, but simply
helped forward and accelerated the already existing notions
and practices along channels and through institutions which
have since then borne Indian names ;

and (3) That post-Buddhistic life and thought in both
countries have been almost identical, so far as religious
ideas are concerned, — and this in spite of differences in
name, e.g., Vaishnavism, Shaivaism, Shaktaisn;, etc., in
India, and neo-Confucianism, neo-Buddhism, neo-Taoism,
etc, in China. And as the civilisation of Japan since the
days of such pioneers as Shotoku Taishi and Kobo Daishi
(7th-8th cent. A.D.) has been mainly an expansion of
Indo-Chinese culture at Nara, Horiyuji, Kamakura and

'<■ CHINESE REIvIGION

Kyoto centres, tlie religious beliefs, practices and customs
are fundamentally the same in San^^oht (or the three worlds,
viz. , India, China and Japan). What pass for Buddhism to-
day in the lands of Confucius and Shinto cult are but
varieties of the same faith that is known as Tan trie and
Pauranic Hinduism in modern Tienchu (Heaven) QxTenjiku^
the land of Sakya the Buddha.

Every case of analogy or parallelism and identity or
uniformity during this comparatively recent period need not,
however, be traced to the cultural, commercial or political
intercourse between the three peoples during the Tang-Sung
era of the Middle Kingdom (7th-13th cent. A.D.), the
Augustan age of Chinese culture. This was synchronous
with the epoch of Imperialism and benevolent ' Caesaro-
Papism ' under such monarchs as Harshavardhana of upper
India, Dharmapala of Bengal and Rajendrachola of the
Deccan. The unity in notions and conventions may as
well be due to the sameness of mental outfit and psychical
organism and the consequent uniformity of responses to
the stimuli presented by the facts and phenomena of the
objective world.

This is specially to be borne in mind while noticing the
identities in earlier epochs. Take, for example, the idea of
the hare in the moon in the poem called " God-questions "
by Chu Ping who lived between 332 and 295 B.C :

" What does the hare expect to get
By sitting gazing in the body of the moon? ' '

Now in Sanskrit language some of the terms by which
the moon is known imply the ' orb with the hare.' The
Hindu idea is also very old ; but probably, as Dr. Hirth
suggests, the same notion has existed in the two countries

THE HYPOTHESIS 5

prior to any intercourse between them. The researches of
Sinologues and Indologists have not yet brought forth any
positive proofs relating to Indo-Chinese relations before
3rd or 2nd century B.C. So that identities or similarities
in the cultural traits of the two peoples up till a century or
two after Confucius and Sakya have to be explained by
other circumstances than facts of history, e.g.^ the common
psychological basis endowing the two races with the same
outlook on the universe.

Mr. Ragozin in his Vedic India remarks about the im-
possibility of studying the ancient Hindus without reference
to their western neighbours, the Iranians of Persia: "These
two Asiatic branches of the Aryan race being so closely
connected in their beginnings, the sap coursing through
both being so evidently the same life-blood, that a study
of the one necessarily involves a parallel study of the other. "
This cannot certainly be said with regard to the relations
between ancient China and Hindusthan. And yet Indo-
Iranian race-consciousness and Chinese race-consciousness
seem to have been cast in the same mould.

1 CHINESE REI/IGION

CHAPTER II.

The Cult of World-Forces In
Pre-Confucian China and Pre-Sakyan India

( B.C. 700)

(a) Yajiia (Sacrifice)

"Sacrificial service," saj's Prof. Hirtli, "we may
conclude from all we read in tlie Shu-Kmg and other accounts
relating to the Shang Dynasty, was the leading feature in
the spiritual life of the Chinese, whether devoted to Shangti
or God, or to what we may call the minor deities as being
subordinate to the Supreme Ruler or to the spirits of their
ancestors. That minuteness of detail which up to the
present day governs the entire religious and social life of
the Chinese gentleman, the more so the higher he is in the
social, and most of all in the case of the emperor himself,
had clearly commenced to affect public and private life long
before the ascendency of the Chou Dynasty (12th cent. B.C.),
under which rule it reached its highest development to serve
as a pattern to future generations. The vessels preserved
as living witnesses of that quasi-religious relation between
man and the unseen powers supposed to influence his life
are full of symbolic ornament. ' '

Religious ceremonies are not described in detail in the
Chinese Classics, but we can have an adequate idea from the
incidental references in the Book of Zr/5-/(5»rj' (Shu-King) and
She- King or Book of Poetry. Dr. Legge gives the following
description which is "as much that of a feast as of a sacri-
fice. ' ' The ' ' ceremonies at the sacrifices " " were preceded
by fasting and various purifications on the part of the king

THE CUIvT OF WORIvD-FORCBS 7

and the parties who were to assist in the performance of
them. There was a great concourse of feudal princes. * * *
Libations of fragrant spirits were made to attract the spirits,
and their presence was invoked by a functionary who took
his place inside the principal gate. The principal victim, a
red bull, was killed by the king himself. * * * Other
victims were numerous, and II. vi. v describes all engaged in
the service as greatly exhausted with what they had to do,
flaying the carcases, boiling the flesh, roasting it, broiling
it, arranging it on trays and stands, and setting it forth.
Ladies from the harem are present, presiding and assisting,
music peals: the cup goes round."

Pictures of such 'family re-unions where the dead and
living met, eating and drinking together, where the living wor-
shipped the dead, and the dead blessed the living' are con-
stantly to be met with throughout Vedic Literature. For sac-
rifice or Yaina is the pivotal factor in Vedic Religion. This
is noticed by Mr. Ragozin also, who remarks on "the immense
extent of the subject, and its immense import not merely in the
actual life, outer and inner, but in the evolution of the religious
and philosophical thought of one of the world's greatest races. ' '
"The regular recurrence of the beneficient phenomena of
nature — rain and light, the alternation of night and day, the
coming of the dawn and the sun, of the moon and the stars" —
all these came through the efficacy of sacrifice and prayer.

The following hymn to Agni the Fire-god translated
by Griffith from the first Book of the Rig Veda would give
an idea of the initial sacrificial rite, as well as the social and
material well-being expected of the whole ceremony :

' ' Mighty Agni, we invite,
Him that perfecteth the rite ;

CHINESE RELIGION

O thou Messenger divine,

Agni ! boundless wealth is thine.

Thou to whom the wood gives birth,
Thou that callest gods to earth !
Call them that we may adore them.
Sacred grass is ready for them.

Messenger of gods art thou —
Call them, Agni ! call them now !
Fain our offerings would they taste,
Agni, bid them come in haste.

Brilliant Agni ! lo, to thee
Pour we offerings of ghee ;
O for this consume our foes
Who on demons' aid repose !

Praise him in the sacrifice,
Agni ever young and wise ;
Glorious in his light is he.
Healer of all malady.

* * *

Agni ! let the guerdon be
Riches, good and progeny ! ' '

The music, dance, picnic, etc., attendant on Indian sac-
rifices have been described in my forthcoming work, TAe
Folk-Element in Hindu Culture, under the chapter ' Social-
isation and Secularisation of Hindu life. '

The Vedic Sacrifice is thus described by Ragozin
{Rig Veda, I. 162): " When they lead by the bridle the
richly adorned courser, the omniform goat is led, bleating

THE CUIvT OF WORI/D-FORCES 9

before him. * * * Pushan's allotted share ; he will be
welcomed by all the gods. Tvashtar will conduct him to
high honours. When men lead the horse, according to
custom, three times around (the place of sacrifice), the goat
goes before (and is killed first) to announce the sacrifice to
the gods. The priest, the assistant, the carver (who is to
divide the carcass), he who lights the fire, he who works the
pressing stones, and the inspired singer of hymns — will all
fill their bellies with the flesh of this well-prepared offering.
Those who fashion the post (to which the victim is to be
bound) , and those who bring it, and those who fashion the
knob on top of it, and those who bring together the cooking
vessels — may their friendly help also not be wanting. The
sleek courser is now proceeding — my prayer goes with
him — to the abodes of the gods, followed by the joyful
songs of the priests ; this banquet makes him one with the
gods.' '

It would thus appear that the Rishis of Vedic India
•could without the least difficulty incorporate the follow-
ing verse from the She-King (Part IV. Book II. iv.) with
their traditional lore : —

In autumn comes th' autumnal rite.
With bulls, whose horns in summer bright
Were capped with care ; — one of them white
For the great duke of Chow designed ;
One red, for all our princes shrined.
And see ! they set the goblet full.
In figure fashion' d like a bull ;
The dishes of bamboo and wood ;
Sliced meat, roast pig, and pottage good ;
And the large stand. Below the hall
There wheel and move the dancers all.

CHIXESE RELIGION

O filial prince, your Sires lAill bless,

And grant you glorious success.

Long life and goodness they will bestow

On you to bold the state of Loo,

And all the eastern land secure,

Like moon complete, like mountain sure,

No earthquake's shock, no flood's wild rage

Shall ever disturb your happy age.

In fact, all the thanksgiving verses in connection with
husbandry and harvests as well as tbe whole Part lY of the
She-Khig entitled Odes of the Temple and the Altar might
be easily interpolated in his collection by J'eda fvasa, the
compiler of the A'edic texts.

^Ir. Giles refers to the custom of human sacrifice
obtaining among the Chinese and also the conditions under
wbich it fell into desuetude. The Satapatha Bmhmana of
the A^edists furnishes e\-idence from the Indian side :

"The gods at first took man as victim. Then the
sacrificial virtue {niedha) left him and went into the horse.
They took the horse, but the niedha went out of him also
and into the steer. Soon it went from the steer into the
sbeep, from the sheep into the goat, from the goat into the
earth. Then the}- dug the earth up, seeking for the niedha
and found it in rice and barle}-. Therefore as much \irtue
as there was in all those five animals, so much there now is
in this sacrificial cake {havis made of rice and barley) i.e.,
for him who knows this. The ground grains answer to the
hair, the water (with which the meal is mixed) to the skin,
the mixing and stirring to the flesh, the hardened cake (in
the baking) to the bones, the ghee with which it is anointed
to the marrow. So the five component parts of the animal
are contained in the havis. "

THE CUL,T OP WORI/D-FORCES 11

{b) Pitrh (Ancestors)

In the Prolegomena to Dr. Legge's translation of She-
King or tlie Book of Poetry we read :

" A belief in tlie continued existence of the dead in a
spirit-state and in the duty of their descendants to maintain
by religious worship a connection with them, have been
characteristics of the Chinese people from their first
appearance in history. The first and third Books of the last
part of the She profess to consist of sacrificial odes used in
the temple-services of the kings of Chow and Shang. Some
of them are songs of praise and thanksgiving ; some are
songs of supplication.; and others relate to the circumstances
of the service, describing the occasion of it, or the parties
present and engaging in it. The ancestors worshipped are
invited to come and accept the homage and offerings
presented."

The following is a picture of Chinese Shintoism or
ancestor- worship ("She-King" Part IV. Book I Section
ii. 7):

The helping princes stand around,

With reverent air, in concord fine.

The King, Heaven's son, with looks profound,

Thus prays before his fathers' shrine; —

"This noble bull I bring to thee.

And these assist me in the rite.

Father, august and great, on me,

Thy filial son, pour down the light!

All-sagely didst thou play the man.

Alike in peace and war a King.

Heaven rested in thee, O great Wan,

Who to thy sons still good dost bring.

CHINESE REIvIGION

The eye-brows of long life to me,

Great source of comfort, thou hast given.

Thou mak'st me great, for 'tis through these

Come all the other gifts of Heaven.

O thou, my mysterious sire.

And thou in whose fond breast I lay,

With power and grace your son inspire

His reverent sacrifice to pay ! ' '

The Kojiki and the Nihongi, the earliest records of
Japanese Literature ( 7th-8th centuries A. D. ) are theprincipal
store-houses of information regarding the primitive Kami-
myths. These contain Ancestor-cult supposed to be the
original faith of the people in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Now if ancestor- worship be the characteristic feature of
the ' sons of Han ' and the people of the Yamato race, the
Vedic Indians and even the present day Hindus are akin to
the Chinese as well as the Japanese. Indian Shintoism is
embodied in the following hymn to the Pitris or Fathers
(domestic, tribal as well as racial) which has a place in the
Rig-Veda (X. 15):

1. Let the Fathers arise, the upper, the lower and the

middle, the offerers of Soma, they the kindly ones,
versed in sacrificial lore, who have entered spirit
life — let them be gracious to our invocation.

2. We will pay reverence to-day to the Fathers who

departed in early times, and to those who followed
later, to those who reside in the earth's aerial place
and those that are with the races of the beautiful
dwellings. * * *

3. Ye Fathers, who sit on the sacrificial grass, come to

us with help ; these oblations we have prepared for

THE CUI^T OF WORIvD-FORCES 13

you : partake of them ; bring tis health and blessings
unmixed.

8. May Yama, rejoicing with our ancient Father, the

best, the gracious, who have come to our Soma-

oblations, drink his fill, eager, with the eager Vasis-

thas.

* * *

1 0. Come, O Agni, with the thousands of ancient and later
Fathers, eaters and drinkers of oblations, who are
reunited with Indra and the gods, who praise the
gods in light.
In Vedic parlance the pitris or ancestors are not only
the deified heroes, Rishis or ' inspired prophets ' and epony-
mous culture-pioneers as we have in Homeric epics,
Celtic legends and Scandinavian sagas, but often have the
same rank as the elemental forces of the universe and the
gods themselves. Ancestor-cult of the ancient and modern
Hindus is essentially a branch of their god-lore, in fact, an
aspect of their all-inclusive Nature-cult.

Taoism is defined by Prof. De Groot in his Religio7t
in China as the system whose ' ' starting point is the Tao,
which means the Road or Way, that is to say, the Road or
way in which the Universe moves, its methods and its .pro-
cesses, its conduct and operation, the complex of phenomena
regularly occurring in it, in short, the order of the World,
Nature or Natural Order. It actually is in the main the
annual rotation of the seasons producing the process of
growth or renovation and decay; it may accordingly be
called Time, the creator and destroyer. ' '

CHINESE REI/IGION

The idea underlying this system of Tao is exactly what
the Hindus are familiar with in the conception of Sandtana
Dhanna, which, by the bye, is the term by which the people
of India designate their own religion, the term Hindidsm
being an expression given by outsiders. Sandtana means
Eternal, Immutable, Changeless, and hence Universal.
And the Dhanna i.e. law, order or religion that is
described by this expression points out the permanent
realities or eternal verities of the imiverse, the truths which
^'having been must ever be," the ever-abiding laws that
govern the world and its movements. Saiidtanisin is thus
the Indian cult of the Tao.

In the Rig Veda these immutable laws are in the custody
of the god \''aruna, and constitute the Riia — "originally the
Cosmic Order." Ri'ia, to quote Ragozin's Vedic India,
"regulates the motions of the sun and moon and stars, the
alternations of day and night, of the seasons, the gathering
of the waters in clouds and their downpour in rain ; in short,
the order that evolves harmony out of chaos."

This conception of the Rita or Eternal Law carries with
it a moral and spiritual significance too. ' ''Rita is holy, is one, is
the right path, the Right itself, the Absolute Good. * * *
There is a moral Rita as there is a material one, or rather the
same Rita rules both worlds. What Eaw is in the physical,
that Truth , Right is in the spiritual order, and both are Rita. ' '
The. Chinese follower of Rita or Sandtaiia Tao thinks
exactly like his Hindu fellowman. ' ' Should his act disagree
with that almighty Tao, a conflict must necessarily ensue,
in which he as the immensely weaker party must inevitably
succumb. Such meditations have led him into the path of
philosophy — to the study and discovery of the characteristics
of the Tao, of the means of acquiring these for himself and

THE CVliT OP WORL,D-FORC:eS 15

of framing his conduct upon them. ' ' According to the Chinese
system there is an attempt " to attract Nature's beneficial
influences to the people and the government and to avert its
detrimental influences." Likewise, the Vedic Hindu, when
oppressed with the consciousness of wrongdoing, and of sin,
cried out for pardon and mercy to Varuna the Superinten-
dent of the Tao.

(d) Ekam (The One Supreme Being)
According to Hirth, " from records of Shu-King we are
bound to admit that the ancient Chinese were decided
monotheists. Shdngit, the Supreme Ruler, received as much
veneration at the hands of his people as did God, under any
name, from any contemporaneous nation. ' ' And we have the
following from Dr. Legge's prolegomena to his translation
of Shu-King: " The name by which God was designated
was the 'Ruler,' the 'Supreme Ruler,' denoting emphatically
his personality, supremacy and unity. By God kings were
supposed to reign, and princes were required to decree
justice. * * * Obedience is sure to receive His blessing;
disobedience to be visited with His curse. * * * When
they are doing wrong, God admonishes them by judgments,
storms, famine and other calamities."

The ode vi. of Book I. Part II. in the She-King em-
bodies the prayer and desire of the o£S.cers and guests at the
end of an entertainment given by the King. The Chinese
notion of the relation of God with human beings is very
clearly set forth in the following lines :

Heaven shields and sets thee fast.

It round thee fair has cast
Thy virtue pure.

Thus richest joy is thine : —

Increase of corn and wine,

CHINESE REI/IGION

And every gift divine,
Abundant, sure.

Heaven shields and sets thee fast.
From it thou goodness hast ;
Right are thy wa5'S.

Its choicest gifts 'twill pour,
That last for evermore,

Nor time exhaust the store
Through endless days.

Heaven shields and sets thee fast,
IMakes thine endeavour last,
And prosper well.

Like hills and mountains high,
Whose masses touch the sky ;
Like stream aye surging by.
Thine increase swell !

With rite and auspice fair.

Thine offerings thou dost bear.
And son-like give,

The seasons round from spring.
To olden duke and King,

Whose words to thee we bring : —
" For ever live."

The following also is very interesting {^She, Part IV.
Book I, iii. 3) as describing the relation of man with God :

With reverence I will go
Where duty 's path is plain.

Heaven's will I clearly know ;
Its favour to retain
Is hard. Let me not say
Heaven is remote on high.

THE CULT OF WORLD-FORCES 17

Nor notices men's way,
There in the starlit sky
It round about us moves
Inspecting all we do,
And daily disapproves
What is not just and true.
The angry mood of Heaven is expressed in the follow-
ing verses {She-king Part III, ii. 10):

" Reversed is now the providence of God; —
The lower people groan beneath their load.
The words you speak, — how far from right are they! "
also in II. iv. 7:

With pestilence and death, Heaven aids disorder's
sway;

* ■ * *

O cruel heaven, that he such woes on all should bring.

O great un pitying Heaven, our troubles have no close,
further in II. iv. 10 :

O vast and mighty heaven, why shrinks thy love?

Thy kindness erst so great, no more we prove.

Sent from above by thine afflicting hand,

Famine and death now stalk through the land.

O pitying Heaven, in terrors now arrayed.

No care, no forethought in thy course displayed.

Of criminals I do not think'; — they bear

The suffering which their deeds of guilt prepare.

But there are many innocent of crime,

O'erwhelmed by ruin in this evil time!

18 CHINESE RELIGION

The Vedic Rishi likewise cries unto Varuna, the god
of gods:

Let me cot yet, O Varuna, enter into the house of clay.
Have mercy, almighty, have mercy! — If I go along, trem-
bling like a cloud driven by the wind, have mercy, almighty,
have mercy. Through want of strength, thou pure one,
have I gone astray: have mercy, almighty, laave mercy.* ^"^
Whenever we, being but men, O Varuna, commit an offence
before the heavenly host, whenever we break thy law
through thoughtlessness, have mercy, almighty, have mercy.
{Rig Veda VII. 89).

The following, also quoted from Ragozin's Vedic
Iiidia, illustrates the same attitude :

However we may transgress thy law, day by day, after
the manner of men, O Varuna, do not deliver us unto death,
nor to the blow of the furious, nor to the wrath of the
spiteful (I. 25). * * Take from me my own misdeeds, nor
let me pay, O King, for others' guilt (II. 28).

The attributes of the Chinese Shangti and Hindu
Varuna are thus identical.

" Varuna was the dispenser of both light and darkness;
when displeased with mortal man, he turned his face from
him, and it was night. * * Disease was another of Varuna' s
fetters, and lastly death."

The conception of the Chinese Shang-ti as Supreme
Ruler is found in the following song of the Vedic Rishi
{Rig Veda V. 85):

" Sing a hymn, pleasing to Varuna the King — to him
who spread out the earth as a butcher lays out a steer's hide in
the sun — He sent cool breezes through the woods, put
mettle in the steed (the Sun), milk in the kine (clouds),

THE CVhT OF WORLD-FORCES 19

wisdom in the heart, fire in the waters (lightning in the
■clonds), placed the stm in the heavens, the Soma in the
mountains. He upset the cloud-barrels and let its waters
flow on Heaven, Air and Barth, wetting the ground and
the crops. He wets both Earth and Heaven, and soon as
he wishes for these kine's milk, the mountains are wrapt in
thunder-clouds and the strongest walkers are tired."

In Ri£- IV. 42 the Rishi makes Varuna declare his
suzerainty to a fellow-god Indra:

"I am the king; mine is the lordship. All the gods
are subject to me, the univei'sal life-giver, and follow
Varuna's ordinances. I rule in men's highest sanctuary. — I
am king A^aruna; my own are these primeval heavenly
powers'. * * * I, O Indra, am A'^aruna, and mine are the
two wide deep blessed worlds. A wise maker, I created all
the beings; Heaven and Earth are by me preserved. — I
made the flowing waters to swell ; I established in their
sacred seat the heavens ; I, the holy Aditya, spread out the
tripartite Universe (Heaven, Earth and Atmosphere)."

The Hindu hymn (X. 121) which defines the notion of
the One Creator of All is being reproduced below :

"In the beginning there arose the Golden Child. He
was the one born lord of all that is. He established the
earth and this sky : who is the god to whom we shall offer
our sacrifice ?

He who gives breath (i.e. life). He who gives strength;
whose command all the gods revere; whose shadow is im-
mortality, whose shadow is death. * * *

He who through his greatness is the one king of the
breathing and awakening world ; He who governs man and
beast. * * *

20 CHINESE RELIGION

He whose greatness the Himavat, the Samudra, the
Rasa proclaim ; He whose these regions are, as it AAere, his
two arms. * * *

He through whom the sky is bright and the earth firm ;
He through whom the Heaven was established, — nay the
highest heaven ; He who measured out the aerial space.

* -rr -JS-

JMa\- He not harm us, the Creator of this earth; who,
ruling b}' fixed ordinances, created the heaven; who also
created the bright and might}' water.''

The following passage from ^Macnicol's Indian Theism
describes the attributes of the Vedic Slinng-ti: "He sitteth
on his throne in the highest heaven and beholds the children
of men; his thousand spies go forth to the world's end and
bring report of men's doings. For with all those other
tokens of preeminence he is specially a moral sovereign, and
in his presence more than in that of any other A'edic god a
sense of guilt awakens in his servants' hearts. His eyes
behold and see the righteous and the wicked. The gxeat
guardian among the god sees as if from anear. * * * j£
two sit together and scheme, King A'aruna is there as the
third and knows it. * * * "Wlioso should flee bej'ond
the heavens far awa}^ would j^et not be free from Kino-
"\'aruna. ' '

The student of Chinese Classics would find in this ex-
tract reminiscences from the Book of Odes and the Book of
History.

{e') Pluralism in God-lore
The Chinese believed in the One Supreme Being, but
they believed in His colleagues and assistants as well. Their

THE CULT OF WORIvD-FORCES 21

universe of Gods and Iligher Intelligences was a pluralistic
one.

The following extract is quoted from North- China
Daily News by Mr. Werner for his Chinese Sociology
compiled upon the plan organised by Herbert Spencer :
"iThe Chinese have the most profound belief in the existence
of fairies. In their imagination, the hills and the mountains
which are supposed to be the favourite resorts of these
mysterious beings are all peopled with them, and from these
they descend into the plains and * * * carry out their
benevolent purpose in aiding the distressed and the forlorn."

According to Giles in Historic China " the first objects
of religious veneration among the ancient Chinese were
undoubtedly Heaven and Earth ; they are the two greatest
of the three great powers of Nature, and the progenitors of
the third, which is Man."

We read the following in Legge's Prolegomena to his
SJic-Ki7tg: ' ' While the ancient Chinese thus believed in
God, and thus conceived of Him, they believed in other
spirits under Him, some presiding over hills and rivers,
and others dwelling in the heavenly bodies. In fact, there
was no object to which a tutelary spirit might not at times
be ascribed and no place where the approaches of spiritual
beings might not be expected and ought not to be provided
for by the careful keeping of the heart and ordering of the
conduct, * * * King Woo is celebrated as having
attracted and given repose to all Spiritual Beings, even to
the spirit of the Ho and the highest mountains. Complaints
are made against the host of heaven — the Milky Way, etc. , —
as responsible for the sufferings caused by misgovernment
and oppression. Mention is made * * * of the demon
of drought ; and we find sacrifices offered to the spirits of the

22 CHINESE RELIGION

ground and of the four quarters of tlie sky, to the Father of
husbandry, the Father of war, and the Spirit of the path."

The worship of Agni, the Fire-god, for which the Vedic
hymn has been quoted above, has also been very old in
China. We get the following in Lacouperie's Western
Origin (P.161); "Fire was looked upon since early times
among the Chinese as a great purifier, and large state fires
were kindled at the beginning of each season, to ward off
the evil influences of the incoming period. Special wood-fuel
was selected with that object. The management of these
fires was in the hands of a Director of Fire. The first
appointment of this kind dates from the reign of Ti Kuh
KaoSin (2160-2085 B.C.).

The worship of stars also was not unknown. And ' 'each
district even had its protecting Spirit, and the Spirit of the
ground was invoked at the solemnity which opened and
terminated the agricultural labours of the year." Says Prof.
Giles: " Natural phenomena * * * have at all times-
entered very largely into the ^religious beliefs of the Chinese,
and may be said to do so even at the present day when gongs
and cymbals are still beaten to prevent a great dog from
swallowing the Sun or Moon at eclipse time."

This Chinese mentality as expressed in the pluralistic
worship manifested itself equally if not more powerfully in
the thousand and one " Nature-myths" of Vedic Literature.
The following is the river-hymn of the Rig Veda (X. 75):

"O ye Gang;i, Yamuna, Saraswati, Satadru, and
Parusni, receive ye my prayers! O ye Marutbridha, joined
by the Asikni, Vitasta and Arjikiya joined by the Susoma^
hear ye my prayers 1 ' '

THE CUIvT OF WORIvD -FORCES 23

Mr. GriiEtli translates the Vedic Hymn to Morning
thus :

Morning ! Child of heaven, appear !
Dawn with wealth our hearts to cheer ;
Thou that spreadest out the light
Dawnjwith food, and glad our sight ;
Gracious goddess, hear our words.

Dawn with increase of our herds !

* * *

Morning! Answer graciously !

Boundless wealth we crave of thee.

^ ^ ^

All that live adore her light —

Pray to see the joyful sight;

* * *

Morning ! Shine with joyful ray !
Drive the darkness far away —
Bring us blessings every day.

The French Vedic scholar Bernaigne gives the following
account of the god Pushan, "pre-eminently a friend of men
and whose career is one of almost homely usefulness " :

' 'Pushan is, first of all, a pastoral and agricultural deity.
He is reputed to direct the furrow; his hand is armed with
the ox-goad ; he is principally the guardian of cattle, who
prevents them from straying, and finds them again when they
get lost. He is, therefore, prayed to follow the cows, to look
after them, to keep them from harm and to bring them home
safe and sound. His care extends to all sorts of property,
which he guards or finds again when lost. He is also the
finder of hidden treasure — cows first on the list always.
Lastly, Pushan guides men, not only in their search for lost
or hidden things, but on all their ways generally. In a word

24 CHINESE REI/IGION

he is the god of wayfarers as well as of husbandmen and
herdsmen. He is called the Lord of the Path, he is prayed
to 'lay out the road, ' to remove from them foes and hind-
rances, to guide his worshippers by the safest roads, as
knowing all the abodes. ' '

Pushan is thus the Chinese "God of the road, invoked
for safe journeys" mentioned by Giles.

The following hymn to Parjanya {^Rig Veda, V. 83)
illustrates the same tendency to have a god for, and deify,
everything :

"Sing unto the strong with these songs, laud Parjanya,
with praise worship him. Loud bellows the Bull ; he lays
down the seed and fruit in the herbs.

He cleaves the trees asunder, he slays the Rakshasas ;
all living creatures fear the wearer of the mighty bolt. Even
the sinless trembles before him, the giver of rain, for Par-
janya, thundering, slays the evil-doers.

As a driver who urges his horses with his whip, he
makes the rainy messengers appear. From far arises, the
roar of the lion when Parjanya makes the cloud full of
rain.

The winds rage, the lightnings shoot through the air,
the herbs sprout forth from the ground, the heavens overflow,
refreshment is borne to all creatures, when Parjanya blesses
the earth with rain, * * * . "

Hymns like these are the spontaneous oiitcorue of a
religious conciousness which is exhibited uiaterially in
sacrifices and prayers for rain, good harvests, health and
general well-being; and these constituted a great part of the
socio-religious life of both Celestials and Hindus.

the cuivt of world-forces 25

(/) Folk- Religion

The pluralistic universe of the Chinese gods includes
not only the S hang it ^ Heaven, Earth, " the six honoured
ones," the stars, ancestors, spirits, hills and rivers, etc., but
is wide enough to embrace almost anything. Thus animals,
reptiles, birds, fishes, insects and plants were regarded as-
abodes of spirits and were worshipped. Mr. Werner gives
the following bibliography : ' ' On Zo-anthropj' generally see
De Groot iv. 156-63, and on the different classes of animals
{were- tigers, wolves, dogs, foxes, bears, stags, monkeys, rats,
horses, donkeys, cows, bucks, swine, etc.) pp. 163-212. On
were-reptiles ( "tortoise worship may be said to have a some-
what extensive literature of its own, and dates back as far as
2900 B.C." — Balfour, Leaves from my Chinese Scrap-book
151-2), birds, fishes and insects, De Groot iv. 212-43, on
plant-spirits pp. 272-324, on Dendrology and Sorcery
vol. v., and on the war against spectres vol. vi. "

Miss Simcox remarks that the "Chinese rendered quasi-
divine honours to cats and tigers because they devoured the
rats, mice and boars of the fields,'' and they " offered also to
the ancient inventors of dykes and water-channels ; (all these
were) provisions for husbandry."

The demonocracy, witchcraft, incantations, charms,
amulets, sorcery, divination by tortoise-shell or stalks of the
plant, shamanism, fetichism, totemism, exorcism, and senti-
ments regarding eclipses, droughts, famines, floods, locusts,
diseases, earthquakes, etc., mentioned by every observer of
ancient Chinese socio-religious life have their parallels or
duplicates in Vedic texts as well. The desire to enjoy the
good things of this earth and ward off the hydra-headed evil
inspired the people of India as well as of China to have re-
course to the same rites and practices. One has only to go

26 CHINESE REWGION

througli the table of contents and index of sucli a work as
the Englished Atharva Veda (in Harvard Series) to be con-
vinced of the common mentality and attitude towards Nature,
Man and God, that characterised the two races in spite of their
divergence in physiognomy and language, and the absence of
intercourse during the period under review. As far as I am
aware, students of Comparative Philology and Somatology
or Physical Anthropology have not yet been able to trace any
connexion between these two peoples. Nor have Archaeo-
logists been successful in proving beyond doubt the existence
of intercourse between them prior to 2nd or 3rd century B.C.
But I venture to think that the data of Psycho-Social or
Cultural Anthropology are copious and varied enough to
attract sinologues to the stud}- of Indology as a subsidiary
branch of their special subject.

In this connexion may be quoted the following remarks
of Dr. Wilhelm in his paper ''On the sotirces of Chinese
Taoism ' — in the Journal of the North China Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Societj^ vol. XIY :

' ' The suggestion lies near that Taoism and pre-Buddhist
Brahmanism may have something in common. It seems
that many Brahmanic gods have found their way into Taoism
even more easily than into Biiddhism. Bven the central
notions of Taoism, Tao and 7>, have an analogue in Brahma
and Atman. So we venture the suggestion that the affinity
of Buddhism and Taoism may have for its reason certain
Brahmanic influences on Taoism."

"Taoism was not founded by Lao-Tzu, neither was Con-
fucianism founded by Confucius. Both of them have their
footing on Chinese antiquity. From that antiquity the foun-
dations of the religious life of China have come down. * *
The religious teachings common to early Taoism and

THE CUI,T OF WORIvD-FORCES 27

Confucianism can be traced in the scriptures of the literati
as well as in the Taoist works;'' — as well as, it may be
added, in the earliest Hindu texts.

Even in Rig Veda we have the following hj^mn to a
herb which would be quite intelligible to the Chinese mind :

" Hundred-fold are your ways, thousand-fold your
growth, endowed with hundred various powers; make me this
sick man well. =^ * * Give me victory as to a prize-winning
mare. * * For I must ha-ve cattle, horses and clothes.
* * * You will be worth much to me if you make my sick
man well. * * * When I, O ye simples, grasp you sternly
in my hands, sickness flees away, as a criminal who fears the
grip of the law. * * * Flee then, sickness, flee away —
with magpies and with hawks ; flee on the pinions of the
winds, nay of the whirlwinds."

In Rig X. 145, we read also of a woman, who digs up a
plant of which to make a love potion and succeeds in getting
rid of her rival in her husband's affections.

The Chinese conception of the Dragon, the serpent
which typifies immortality and the Infinite and has its abode
in the sky or cloudland is also very old in India. Thus
Indra the Vedic thunder-god is celebrated as the fighter of
Ahi the cloud-serpent. Hirth quotes an article by Prof.
Chavannes in the Journal Asiaiique (1896, P. 533) in
which we read : " The dragon itself could well be related
to the Nagas of India."

The following is the hymn sung by Visvamitra for the
increase of barley {Atharva Veda — Harvard, P. 387) :

1. Rise up, become abundant with thine own great-
ness, O barley, and ruin all receptacles, let not the
bolt from heaven smite thee.

28 CHINESE RELIGION

2. Where we appeal unto thee, the divine barley that
listens, there rise up like the sky ; be unexhausted
like the ocean.

3. Unexhausted be thine attendants, unexhausted thy
heaps, thy bestowers be unexhausted; thy eaters be
unexhausted.

In the Atharva ]'eda we read of the amulet of tidufiiz'ara
(^Ficus glome rata) plant as conferring various blessings :

"Rich in manure, rich in fruit, swadhd and cheer in our
house — prosperity let Dhatar assign to me through the
keenness of the amulet of lidumvara. * * * I have seized
all the prosperity of cattle, of quadrupeds, of bipeds, and
what grain (there is) ; the milk of cattle, the sap of herbs,
may Brihaspati, may Savitar confirm to me. * * * As in
the beginning, Thou, O forest-tree, wast born together
with prosperity, so let Saraswati assign to me fatness of
riches."

Again, " Since thou, O off- wiper, hast grown with
reverted fruit, mayest thou repel from me all curses very far
from here."

In the AtJiarva Veda X. 10 we have an extollation of
the cow and in IX. 7 of the ox. The following is a
specimen :

''The draft-ox sustains earth and sky; the draft-ox
sustains the wide atmosphere; the draft-ox sustains the six
wide directions; the draft-ox hath entered into all existence
* * * With his feet treading down debility, with his
thighs extracting refreshing drink — with weariness go the
draft-ox and the plowman unto sweet drink."

THE CUIvT OF WORI/D-FORCES 29

About the goat we read :

"With milk, with ghee, I anoint the goat, the heavenly
eagle, milky great ; -by it may we go to the world of the
well-done, ascending the heaven, unto the highest firma-
ment. "

Like plant-amulets we have also jewel-amulets in Vedic
literature. The following is from Macdonell and Keith's
Vedic Index Vol. II: "Mani is the name in the Rig Veda
and later of a jewel used as an amulet against all kinds of
evil." And we have the following testimony from the
Athaiva Veda in Harvard Series: "The bit of Hindu folk-
lore about the origin of pearls by the transformation of rain
drops falling into the sea * * * is at least ten centuries
old. Born in the sky, ocean -born, brought hither out of
the river, this gold-born shell is for us a life-prolonging
amulet." Amu.lets of gold, lead, and of three metals are
also mentioned in Atharva Veda.

(£■) Idealism as a phase of Spirituality.

The forefathers of the Chinese and the Hindus were
not without their intellectuals who tried to probe the
mysteries of the universe. The results of their metaphy-
sical investigation, though not quite systematised on a
regular plan, we have in such works as the Heraclitean
Yi-King (Book of Changes), theTaoist legends and Upanis-
hadic lore. Neither the Chinese classics nor the Vedic
texts are complete without these speculative discourses. To
look upon these as separate from the classics is to misunder-
stand the earliest encyclopsedias of the two peoples.

The Book of Changes^ the most difficult of Chinese
classics, is probably also the oldest' work. As for Taoist
doctrines, though they get methodised in a presentable shape
about the 6th cent. B.C. or later, there is no doubt that they

30 CHINESE REUGION

have been coeval with Chinese civilisation as floating liter-
ature. And the Upanishads which embody Hindu Taoism
have existed ever since the Rigs have been recited and the
Sdmas chanted at the sacrificial ceremonies. They are
integral parts of the Vedas according to Indian tradition.
Thus pari passu with the development of the ancestor-cult,
►S/«d%^/z'-cult, demonology, etc. , we notice the dualistic con-
ception of the Yang and Yin, Purusha and Prakriti, heaven
and earth, male and female, as well as the monistic pan-
theism and mysticism of the unconditioned, absolute and
transcendent Reality. The parallelism between Chinese
and Hindu religious consciousnesses up till about 8th-7th
century B.C. is as great in ritualism and naturalism as in
idealism and supernaturalism.

We notice this parallelism pervading every side of the
spiritual life of the two peoples. Thus even before there was
any intercourse between them we get pictures of asceticism,
Yoga, retirement from life etc., in both China and India.
De Groot begins his chapter on 'Holiness by means of as-
ceticism and retirement' thus: "A study of the text, which
I have quoted in the two preceding chapters from the ancient
classics and the writings of the early patriarchs of Taoism,
necessarily leads us to the conclusion that there has prevail-
ed, in the long pre-Christian period which produced those
books, a strong leaning towards stoicism and asceticism.
Perfection, holiness, or divinity were indeed exclusively
obtainable by "dispassion, " apathy, will-lessness, uncon-
cernedness about the pleasures and pains of life, quietism or

wti-wei. ' '

Again, " Ch wan gtsze boldly refers Taoist asceticism to
China's most ancient times. He represents the mythical
I^mperor Hwangti as having retired for three months, in

the; cult of world-force;s 31

order to prepare himself for receiving the Tao from one
Kwang Shentsze, an ascetic who practised quietism, freedom
from mental agitation, deafness and blindness to the
material world, and so on. Retirem.ent from the busy world
is frequently mentioned in the Classics and other ancient
writings by such terms as tun^ fun, Yih and Yin.''''

This phase of religious activity manifested itself in India
also. Mr. Macnicol speaks about the 6th century B.C.:

"The passionate quest of all awakened spirits, whether
they were mendicants or kings, was for immortality, for
deliverance from that bondage which was life itself. The
orthodox * * * pursued it along the ' road of works, '
the way of rite and oblation. * * * 'pj^e intellectuals
* * * sought the same goal along the ' road of knowl-
edge,' reaching it at last by the intuition that perceives the
spirit within to be one with the spirit that is ultimate and
alone. The devout worshipped in loving faith the god
of their devotion, believing that his grace would save them in
the midst of a world of a samsCira. But the most earnest
among all these * * * would take the staff of the
mendicant and go forth as seekers, Sramanas, Yogis, Mu-
nis, Yatis — labouring to reach by self-torture or by mental
exercises the goal of deliverance so passionately desired."

It would thus appear that the passion for Mukii
(Salvation) is as old in China as in India.

{Ji) "Through Nature up to Nature's God"
The Japanese scholar Suzuki in his historical treat-
ment of the Chinese intellect during the period we have
been considering lays, special stress on a fact which, accord-
ing to him, ' 'must be borne in mind when we investigate the
history of Chinese philosophy". The remark which has

32 CHINESE RELIGION

been made by almost every sinologue is thus worded : ' 'The
philosophy of the Chinese has always been practical and most
intimate!}' associated with human affairs. No ontological
speculation, no cosmogonical hypothesis, no abstract ethical
theory seemed worthy of their serious contemplation, unless it
had a direct bearing upon practical morality. They did, in-
deed, speculate in order to reach the ultimate ground of exis-
tence; but as the}^ conceived it, it did not cover so wide a
realm as we commonly understand it, for to them it meant
not the universe generally, with all its innumerable relations,
but only a particular portion of it — that is, human affairs —
and these only so far as the}' were concerned with this pres-
ent mundane life, political and social. Thus, we do not have
in China so much of pure philosophy as of moral sayings."

Sinologues must certainly be accused of 'crying for the
moon' when the}' are disappointed in not finding among the
Celestials a Spencerian SyntJietic Philosophy or a Hegellian
Dialectic and a Bergsouian Creative Evolution. They seem
to forget that the Chinese of the Chou, Shang and previous
Dynasties were contempoTaries, if not of the builders of the
Pyramids, at least of the precursors of the bards of the Iliad
and the Odyssey and of the Rishis who were just contem-
plating the founding of a superb civilisation on ' the banks
of the seven rivers. ' To understand Chinese intellect in its
proper perspective we have to take a cross-section of world-
culture, say, about 8th-7th century B.C., the period which
prepared the advent of a Confucius, a Siikyasimha, a
Zarathustra and a Pythagoras. The ancient Egyptians
and Assyrians, the ^geans of Crete who formed the
connecting link between the land of the Nile and the
Isles of Greece, the Achseans and lonians of the Homeric
and Hesiodic eras, and the Hindus of the Vedic age would

THE CULT OF WORIvD-FORCES 33

all be found to be equally wanting in the capacity for philo-
sophical speculation or methodical intellectual work, if
one were to judge of their achievements by the standard of
to-day. The Hindus and Hellenes are often mentioned as
pre-eminentl}' speculative races, and the Chinese placed in a
miserable light by their side ; but what specimens of Indo-
Aryan intellectuality do we come across during the period
synchronous with the first half of the Chou Dynasty (1122-
249 B.C.), not to speak of the previous two milleniums
during which the Chinese people have lived in history?
Indeed, all the great races of men who have pioneered
human civilisation have in their initial stages been mainly
concerned with the problems of bread and butter, and sub-
sidiarily or incidentally with the ' problems of the sphinx, '
'pure philosophy,' 'speculative systems,' methodology,
and all those topics with which we are familiar in modern
times.

There is another pitfall into which we moderns are apt
to be led by our temptation to read into old world life the
facts and ideas of the present day. Scholars have their own
theories about the ideally best form of religion, as they
have also their own ideas of the ideally best form of govern-
ment. Sinologues as well as Indologists are, therefore, ever
anxious to know what was the formula or catchword by
which the ancient Chinese as well as Vedic Hindus tried
to express their religious notions. Was it polytheistic,
monotheistic, pantheistic, henotheistic, anthropomorphic,
naturalistic, animistic or what? Probably those pioneers of
world's culture did not care for an}'^ formula at all.

It is a matter of common experience that there is no
one word which can explain all the multifarious thoughts

34 CHINESE REIvIGIOX

and activities of even a small group of human beings whom
we can watch everyday. Strictly speaking, in this worid
of ours there is no purely republican or purely despotic state
just as there is no purely monotheistic or purely polytheistic
people. In every field we meet with cases of ' mixed
systems,' toleration of diversities, reconciliation of op-
posites, and choice of the ' lesser evil. ' So that in matters
of religion as of politics people are compelled for all practi-
cal purposes to accept for their guidance the dictum of
Alexander Pope :

" For forms of government let fools contest,
Whatever is best administer' d is best. "

The Celestials like their contemporaries of Vedic India
were essentially the worshippers of Nature. What they
cared for most was Life, and Avhat they feared most was the
enemy of Life, both physical and human. The chief inspira-
tion in all their activities was the desire to equip themselves
for the 'struggle for existence.' They made use of anything
that was likely to promote and advance the interests of life;
and therefore, all the World-Forces, taken collectively in
their totality, as well as individually and singly, attracted
their attention. They wanted to harness the energies of
Nature as best as they could to the production of the necessa-
ries, comforts and luxuries of life. These natural benefactors
of the human race were personified in their imagination, and
they became the deities, the spirits, the fairies and the Shdngtt
or Ekam. Furthermore, the example of predecessors is a
great help to subsequent generations especially when they
are bent on an arduous task. So the ancestor-cult has had
a prominent place in the comprehensive cult of world-
foirces ever since the dawn of Chinese and Indian history

THE CUI^T OF WORI,D-FORCE)S 35

the heroified fathers being as great beneficent agencies as
the planets, the earth, fire and wiiid.

Nature or Universe, considered materially, gave to
these pioneers of civilisation the primitive sciences and
primitive arts. iSTature or Universe, considered animistic-
ally, gave them the higher personalities or transcendent
Beings who, like Prometheus, were the discoverers and
custodians of all these instruments of human culture. They
began that "quest of the Holy Grail," both intellectual and
spiritual, which mankind is pursuing still and will con-
tinue to pursue for ever under the guidance of myriads of
Sir Galahads.

We have read Charles lyamb's famous "Dissertation
on Roast Pig ' ' in his Essays of Elia., The hutnorotts
account of the Chinese invention of the art of cooking through
cumbrous processes that we have in this most delightful of
mock-anthropological essays is, after all, a serious chapter
in the origins of civilisation. This was the kind of things
the Celestials and Vedic Hindus were doing — discovering
the rudiments- of every desirable knowledge, And in the
process of discovery they 'postulated' or took for granted the
.spiritual Being and Beings — (has not the 'God' of every race,
at best, been only a postulate?) — who are above the ordinary
mortals and who are capable of helping them in their need.
-They were thus looking "through Nature up to Nature's
God." Their religion was fundamentally the handmaid of
Life and hence coincided fully with what we call Kultur.

There are, however, certain contrasts which must not
be overlooked by the student of Comparative Religion :

1. The form in which Vedic Literature has come down
to us is quite different from that in which we have the
Chinese Classics.

36 CHINESE RELIGION

2. Vedic religion is more martial than tliat embodied
in Shu-Ktng and She-King. Earliest Hindu Rishis seem
to have been burning with the passion for extirpating the
enemies.

3. The tone of Vedic texts is more naturalistic than
that of Chinese classics ; but the actual socio-economic
life as described in the Liki would indicate that planetary
and natural phenomena had equal if not more influence
among the Celestials.

4. Neither the Celestials nor the Vedists knew of any
icons or images, unless the personifications and metaphors
necessarily involved in the use of language as a medium of
expression be regarded as images, as, strictly speaking, they
should. But while we read of temples in ancient China,
we have only open-air altars in the ' land of seven rivers. '

5. The sacrificial service was the monopoly and pre-
rogative of the king, the "son of Heaven" in the Middle
Kingdom, but it was the function of the people or at any
rate their sacerdotal delegates in Hindusthan.

If we neglect these and other minor differences we may
state that the socio-religious world into which Sakya was
born was identical with that in which Confucius was to
work. - The two great Sages found in their respective com-
patriots the same mental biases and spiritual attitudes, and,
as we shall see, preached to their disciples almost the self-
same gospel.

CHAPTER III
Confucius the historian and S^kyasimha the

philosopher

Section I.

Aiifklarung in Asia — the Age of Bncyclopsedists

(7th-5th Cent. B.C.)

Matthew Arnold in his Introduction to Johnson's Lives
of the Poets remarks on the' 18th century as being in
England pre-eminently an age of prose. This remark can
apply to the whole Europe of the 18th century and
to every department of its thought. Prose is the
instrument of reason, science, criticism and philosophy.
The eighteenth century was thus the era of rationalism,
discussion, summing-up, stock-taking, paraphrasing,
explanation, aufklarung. It was the epoch of French
encyclopaedists, English deists and German classicists.

It witnessed the production of the Cuvierian System of
Natural History, Hume's Essay on the Human Undeistand-
ing and the Kantian Critique of Pure Reason. It was a time
when rulers and statesmen were apostles of "Enlighten-
ment" and came to their work equipped with philosophical
theories as to the common weal; when poets and artists
were archaeologists, philologists, folklorists, botanists and
art-critics, and when the title of a poetical work could
be The Essay on Man. Truly, the sway of the Muses was
held in abeyance, and the "sad Nine * * * left their
Parnassus" to the tender mercies of the prophets of 'the
philosophy of history,' 'the proper study of mankind,' and
Hhe rights of man. ' ' '

38 CHINESB RBLIGION

Corresponding to the systole and diastole in every
living organism we have to recognise an epoch of expansion
and creative originality as well as an epoch of concentration
and interpretative criticism in social organisms. An epoch
of concentration was the 18th century. Another such
epoch in European history was the 15 th century prior to the
discoveries which initiated a 'new learning,' a new religion, a
new state-system as well as a new industrial and commercial
era. And yet another such age of criticism and concentra-
tion was the 4th century B.C. which summed up the whole
history and philosophy of classical Hellas. The close of
that epoch heralded the birth of altogether new conceptions
of life under the auspices of Alexander, the mighty son of
the "barbarian" conqueror of the disunited Greek city-
states, and witnessed the' inauguration of a new world for
which Professor Mahaffy coins the term "Hellenistic" as
contrasted with Hellenic.

The fourth century B.C. was essentially an age of
prose and discussion. The dramatists like Euripides and
Aristophanes thought in terms of the Periclean demagogues
and mobocrats, and wrote for an audience every second person
in which was a sophist. Unfortunately, the term 'sophist'
has not yet been able to shake off the degradt;d sense asso-
ciated with it in spite of the monumental apology offered by
Grote in his celebrated History of Greece. It is, however,
the sophists who represent the best products of Athenian
culture in the most flourishing period of the Hellenic race.
In the 4th century B.C. Athens was the "school of Hellas,"
and the most prominent men of the day were the sophists,
those peripatetic pedagogues and apostles of encyclopsedic
culture to whom the world owes Greek physics, Greek logic

AUFKI^ARUNG 39

Greek psychology, Greek politics, and Greek ethics.
Socrates was the prince of sophists, Plato was the disciple of
that Christ of Hellas, and Aristotle, the gm-u or "guide,
philosopher, friend"of Alexander, "drank deep of the pierian
spring" at Plato's Academy. The whole age was dominated
by questionings and answerings, criticism and counter-
criticism, mass-meetings and street-comer talks, doubts and
explanations regarding the individual, the family, the city,
the state and the universe. In one word, it was the first
epoch of Sturm und drang in the history of Burope.

Asiatic History also furnishes several such ages of
'storm and stress,' criticism, interpretation, explanation,
aufklarung. The sixth century B.C. was probably the
first epoch of this kind. During this epoch the whole
humanity of the Orient was passing through a period of
interpretative criticism. We notice this both in China and
India as well as in Persia. All Asia was stirred to her
depths by thousand and one questionings, intellectual, moral
and spiritual. In the near Bast, middle Bast and the far
Bast, there could be seen plentiful as blackberries the
Paracelsuses and* Fausts, the seekers after truth, beauty
and good, brain-workers with their methods for solving the
doubts, the spiritual doctors with their philosophical
recipes, moralists with their systems of diagnosis, and
healers of the ' ' Sorrows of Werter. ' ' This all-round stir and
turmoil was characterised by literary efforts which led to the
collection, compilation and codification of the ancient tradi-
tions, legends and songs; the best intellectuals of the times
became the system atisers and conservers of their race-
culttire. Bvery work that has been handed down to us from
this age is a summing up of the previous ages ; every person
on whom we can definitely lay our hands at this age is an

40 CHINESE RELIGION

all-round sophist, an encyclopaedist who has tried all methods
and who has mastered all available facts. Like Plato and
Aristotle, the Asiatic master-minds of the sixth century B. C.
thus represent the sunset of an old system rather than the
dawn of a new.

The last word of classical Europe was being taught in the
schools of Academy and Lyceum. The last word of prim-
itive Asia was being preached by Zarathustra (B.C. 660-583) ,
Sakyasimha (B.C. 563-483) and Confucius (B.C. 551-479).
The next epoch was created by Alexander (B.C. 330) the uni-
fier of the East and the West, ChandraguptaMaurya (B.C. 330)
the first Emperor of United India, andShi-Hwangti(B.C. 220)
the first ' 'Son of Heaven' ' to rule the whole Celestial Empire.
The problems of these Empire-builders were too far beyond the
ken of a Greek sophist, a Hindu philosopher and a Chinese
historian. Sakyasimha, Confucius, and Plato were anachron-
isms in that new age with novel problems which required
another Socratic method and another Novum Organum.

It was not the conventional and orthodox Greek
philosophy of man as 'a political animal, ' but the un-Greek
individualism and cosmo-politanism or universalism of
the Stoics and Epicureans (with their doctrines of the
"Law of Nature," "Law of Reason," etc, anticipating
\\\& jus gentium and "Law of Nations" of the Romans)
that expressed the ideals of the post- Alexandrian Ptolemies
and Seleucidae who in their daily lives were bring-
ing about a rapprochement between diverse races and
diverse sentiments. This new age is, therefore, signalised
by Shi Hwangti's order for the wholesale burning of
the Confucian texts and massacre of the Confucian
pedantocrats, — the most emphatic protest against fossils ever
recorded in history. It is certainly an allegory of the

HIGHER CRITICISM 41

method followed by those who have the "shortest way"
with old idolas. And in Hindusthan the Finance Minis-
ter of Chandragupta is not a yellow-robed monk of
Sakyasimha's monastery, but Katitilya, the Machiavelli
and Bismarck of Indian politicians. All the world over,
the "old order" changed "yielding place to new." But as
yet we have to see something of this old order as conserved
by the Asiatic Encyclopsedists of the 6th century B.C..

Section 2.

Confucius and Sakyasimha in Contemporary Asia
[a) "Higher Criticism"

Besides Zarathustra four men of Asia living in the sixth
century B.C. have been honoured as the founders of four new
cults: Ivao-tsze the prophet of Taoism, and Confucius the
teacher of Propi'iety, in China ; and Sakyasimha the
propounder of Nirvanism^ and Mahavira the founder of
Jainism^ in India. Of these four, one in each country towers
above his rival and the rest of his compatriots into solitary
greatness. They are Confucius and Sakyasimha.

Mankind is so obsessed by the current notions and
superstitions about such ancestors as have been fortunately
canonised and heroified by the verdict of subsequent
history that it is impossible for scientific purposes to get an
exact idea of what those men of flesh and blood were like.
This is all the more difficult in the case of prophets and seers
whose worshippers number in present day life by hundreds
of millions. The instruments of Higher Criticism, the
Doctrine of Relativity, and Comparative-Historical Method
have got a place in sociologists' laboratories only recently. It
may sometimes, therefore, be worth one's while to listen to the

42 CHINESE REWGION

opinion of a cynic and satirist, if not for anything else, at
least to get a fresh view-point.

Let us see what Anatole France, the pupil of Bmest
Renan, says about the man Jesus in relation to his brother-
Jews and their masters the Romans. ' 'Wherever in modern
poetry or art the figure of Jesus is treated, no matter in what
spirit — let it be by Paul Heyse, by Sadakichi Hartmann the
Japanese, or Edward Soderbergthe Dane — He is the principal
figure of His day, occupying the thoughts of all. France, in his
story, Judaeus Procurator , has, in an extremely clever manner,
indicated the place occupied by Jesus in the consciousness of
the contemporary Roman. To any one who can read, the fact
that the life and death of Jesus interested only a little band
of humble people in Jerusalem, is sufficiently established by
the circumstance that Josephus, who knows everything that
happens in the Palestine of his day, does not so much as
name Him. The man who argues that such an event as the
Crucifixion must have made some impression forgets what a
common and unheeded incident a crucifixion was in troublous
times. During the Jewish war of the year 70 in the course
of which 13,000 Jews were killed at Skythopolis, 50,000 in
Alexandria, 40,000 at Jotapata— 1,100,000 in all— Titus
crucified on an average 500 Jews every day. When, impelled
by hunger, they crept under the walls of Jerusalem, they were
captured, tortured and crucified. At last there was no more
wood for crosses left in Palestine.' '

The above extract is from Dr. Georg Brandes the
Danish critic's work on Anatole France in " Contemporary
Men of Letters Series. ' ' The following rather long account
is also from the same : " As his principal character, France
has taken the Titus ^lius Lamia, * * * a gay young
Roman who * * * is banished, * * * goes to

HIGHER CRITICISM 43

Palestine and meets with a friendly reception in the house
of Pontius Pilate. Forty years pass ; ^lius Lamia has long
been back in Italy, he is at Baiae, taking the baths, and is
sitting one day by a path * * * when in the occupant
of a litter * * * {^ seems to him that he recognises his
old host, Pilate.

"And it really is Pilate. * * * They talk of old days
— of all the trouble Pontius had with those wretched Jews,
who refused to do homage to the image of the Bmperor on
the banners and allowed themselves to be flogged to death
rather than worship it. * * * He recalls an evening on
which he saw one of them (Jewesses) dancing. * * *
She had heavy red hair, this girl, whose charms enticed the
young Roman to follow her everywhere. ' But she ran
away from me,' he continued, 'when the young lay
preacher and miracle-worker came from Galilee to Jerusalem.
She became inseparable from him and joined the little band
of men and women who were always with him. You
remember him of course?' 'No,' replies Pilate. 'His
name was Jesus, I think ; he was from Nazareth. ' ' I do
not remember him,' reaffirms Pilate. 'You were obliged
to have him crucified.' 'Jesus — ' mutters Pilate, 'from
Nazareth — I have no recollection of it.' "

This is how " values" are " transvalued" by a cynic.
Anatole France makes even Pilate forget Jesus and Lamia
remember him only because of Magdalene ! But as a country-
man of mine, Professor Seal, has well put it in his introductory
note to Mookerj i ' s Indian Shipping : "To explode the Mosaic
authorship is not to explode Moses in culture-history."
Christ, the "strong Son of God, Immortal Love " lives in
human imagination though the man Jesus is forgotten.
It should, therefore, be a most natural thing if we do not find

44 chine;se reivIGion

the historic persons Confucius and Siikyasimlia to be the
sole luminaries of their age which the reverent and pious
imagination of future generations of devotees have made out
of them as the Eternal Sage and the god Buddha.
(3) The Peers of Confucius

Indeed in the China of the 6th century B.C. there was
no place for Dictator in any field. It was a period of
feudalism or political disruption, and there was no one
centre of gravity in the socio-economic or socio-political
system. Decentralisation in politics necessarily brought with
it the establishment of culture-centres throughout the length
and breadth of the country. In the history of civilisation
feudalistic disintegration thus serves a very useful purpose
in so far as it leads to diffusion and popularisation of ideas
through the rivalry of contending states. This is what
happened in mediaeval Burope under the regime of the
Barons, Markgrafs and Dukes, guilds and city-states. Bvery
barony or duchy had its own minnesinger^ chdrana, min-
strel, volksdichter ^ wanderlehrer^ troubadour and trouvere.
It is extremely difficult for even an extraordinary genius to
get more than a parochial fame under conditions which
foster local patriotism, unless there be special circumstances
calculated to break the barriers between centre and centre
and create a common standard of culture.

The following account of Legge about the manner in
which the Book of Odes could be compiled is interesting as
showing how cultural unity is possible even under feudal
conditions: "The feudal states were modelled after the
pattern of the royal state. They also had their music-
masters, musicians, and their historio-graphers. The Kings
in their progresses did not visit each particular state.
* * * They met, at well-known points, the marquises,

THE PEERS OP CONFUCIUS 45

earls, barons of the different quarters of the kingdom*
* * * We are obliged to suppose tbat tbe princes would
be attended to the places of rendezvous by their music-
masters, carrying with them the poetical compositions
collected in their several regions, to present them to their
superior of the royal court." It was the Durbars or
Imperial conferences that supplied the connecting link
between state and state in feudal China. But though such
gatherings might be good opportunities for minstrels to get
a hearing beyond their little platoon, it is very much to be
doubted if they furnished facilities for scholars and thinkers
to reach their peers throughout an entire continent. In dis-
integrated Germany, on the other hand, culture could be
unified and the first-class thinkers could acquire an all-Ger-
man reputation because, according to Merz in the History
of European Thought^ "the migration of students as well as
eminent Professors from one university to another was one
of the most important features of German academic life."
The condition of the Celestial kingdoms during the Chou
Period cannot, however, be compared to that of the German
states of ^he 18th century.

Prof'essor Gowen gives the general character of the
Chou Eiynasty which ruled over China from B.C. 1122 to
249 : ' ' The period as a whole reveals a gradual weaken-
ing of the central authority by reason of the increase of
power in the vassal and confederate states. The number of
these at one time was as many as a hundred and twenty-five,
and even in the time of Confucius there were fifty-two."

About the middle of the 8th cent. B.C., to quote again
from Gowen 's Outline History of China, "the vassal princes
became more and more powerful and therewith more and
more independent. They began to take possession of entire
provinces and to govern them without reference to the

46 CHINESE REWGION

decrees of tlie Emperors. " And "the history of the next
century i.e. from B.C. 685 to 591 has been entitled the period
of Five Leaders because it exhibits the rise in succession to
power of the five states. ' ' The disunion and struggle for
hegemony went on till B.C. 249.

Professor Hirth also remarks : " If we glance at a
historical map of Germany during the Thirty Years ' War,
and if we recall the changes it underwent before and aftei:
that period within the space of about two centuries and a
half, corresponding in duration to the Chun-tsin period
(B.C. 722-481) we may comprehend the diflBLcult}'^, not to
say impossibility, of furnishing a sj'noptic view of the
numerous states constantly at war with each other, falling
under the nominal sway of the Chou Dynasty. "

Bach feudal lord certainly considered himself to be a
son of Heaven, and the royal court was everywhere organised
on the same plan fully described in the Chotc-li, the Text-
Book of Politics compiled in the 12th century B.C.. Regard-
ing this work Hirth says : ' 'As an educator of the nation the
Chou-li has probably not its like among the literatures of the
world, not excepting even the Bible. This remark refers
especially to its minute details of public and social life.
* * * The most rigid religious ceremonial regulates thie
daily life of the Bmperor, government officers and feudatory
lords."

According to the stereotyped constitution set forth in
the Chou-li, every state had to maintain six departments of
government, each under a Mandarin. Unfortunately, we
know very little of the names of the persons who, like the
Great Sage and his rival Lao-tsze, filled those posts, and of
,the kind of work they actually did. But it is evident that
.^cattere^ throughout the Middle Kingdom there were bom

THB PEERS OF CONFUCIUS 47

during the long period of the Chou Dynasty men of mark in
statesmanship, education, philosophy, and warfare. As it is,
we have the names only of Laotsze the keeper of archives at
the Imperial capital, and Confucius the Judge and Librarian
at a provincial city, both belonging to the sixth century B.C.,
and of Kuantzi the Prime Minister of a small state towards
the beginning of the seventh century B.C.. About this states-
man-philosopher Hirth remarks: " The advice given by
Kuantzi has become the prototype of governmental prudence
for Chinese official life. Thus Kuantzi * * * has become the
father of institutions of the utmost importance to the whole
empire during its later economic development; for example,
in regard to the iron and salt monopolies. If we consider
that his life-time lay in the early days of regal Rome, and
that the work of his life was done before Solou the Athenian
was born, Kuantzi may be regarded as having furnished the
very type of a statesman in the modern sense by collecting
facts for the purposes of governmental administration; fur-
ther by endeavouring to describe such facts in the shape of
a numerical formula, he may be regarded as the oldest
Statistician of all nations. ' '

In the present state of Sinology we have only vague
references to the ancient sages and professors of Taoism in
connexion with Laotsze, and to previous collectors, compilers
and editors in connexion with Confucius. If the fame of
Confucius depends mainly on his work as editor, he has
certainly been usurping the meed due to others, since neither
the Book of History nor the Book of Odes, the two most
important, nor the Book of Changes, the most ancient
and abstruse, of Chinese Classics, owe their compilation to
Jlim. In any case it is clear that Confucius was only one of
the many intellectuals who appljed their brains to the ptoh-

48 CHINESE) REI/IGION

lems associated by posterity exclusively with his name.
His life, we know, was not a success. He was not con-
fident even of his posthumous fame. He is said to have re-
marked about himself : "My principles do not make way in
the world; how shall I make myself known to future ages?"
He retired from public life in despair and died broken-
hearted. He declared himself to be a failure — "The great
mountain must crumble, the strong beam must break, the
wise man withers away like a plant."

This was the historic person Confucius. He had not
to renounce royalty like a Sakya or suffer martyrdom
like a Jesus. He was not a successful nation-maker like
the Prophet of Mecca, nor did he experience the ecstasy
of a Chaitanya of Bengal. Yet, in the words of von der
Gablentz, "even at the present day, after the lapse of more
than two thousand years, the moral, social, and political
life of about one third of mankind continues to be under
the full influence of his mind." It was under the Han
Dynasty i.e. over 300 years after his death, that Confucius
was made Duke and Earl. The Chinese Herodotus, the
historian Suma-chien (2nd- 1st centuries B.C.) calls him "the;
divinest of men." And he was made "Perfect Sage" in the 5th
century A.D. i.e. a whole millenium after he was dead and
gone. Surel}'-, "distance lends enchantment to the earl"

In the sixth century B.C. Confucius was only a
mortal among mortals. But the age itself was an extraor-
dinary one. Says Prof. Suzuki : ' ' What a glorious age
this was for early thinkers of China can be seen from the
fact that several writers and historians of the day made
attempts to classify them according to their doctrines, the
number of which had become confusingly large. To quote
only one of these historians, Panku, author of the History of

THE PEERS OF CONFUCIUS 49

the Han Dynasty, divides the ante-Chin (Chou dynasty)
thinkers into ten classes : (l) Scholars (Confucians), (2)
Taoists, (3) Astrologers and Geomancers (4) Jurists, (5)
Logicians or Sophists, (6) Followers of Mutze, (7) Diplo-
matists, (8) Miscellaneous writers, (9) Agriculturists, (10)
Story writers. ' '

Confucius may be great, but China is greater. Re-
garding the general stir and turmoil of the period Suzuki
remarks : ' ' The Chinese mind may have developed later
a higher power of reasoning, and made a deeper study
of consciousness ; but its range of intellectual activities was
never surpassed in any other period. * * * During the
ante-Chin period Confucianism was not yet firmly establish-
ed, and there were many rival doctrines struggling for
ascendency and recognition."

Confucius is not China. We have been misunderstand-
ing the Celestial People by taking it as but Confucius
' ' writ large. ' ' To understand the Middle Kingdom of the
time of Confucius it is desirable to have the fresh standpoint
of an Anatole France with regard to the age of Jesus.
The so-called Confucian classics must not be allowed to
cover our whole mental horizon. They should rather be
awarded a place neither superior nor inferior to, but along-
side of, the works of the class of Chou-li and the Taoist lore
compiled by the Great Sage's senior and no less great rival.
And to hav^ a complete picture of the intellectual atmos-
phere one would have to familiarize oneself with numerous
other forms of literature which unfortunately seem to have
been neglected and not given their due by sinologues.
Much useful work remains to be done in the culture-history
of pre-Confucian China covering, as it does, a period of over
3000 years.

50 CHINESE REIvIGIOX

The onh'. original work done by Confucius is the com-
pilation of the histon'^ of the state in which he was bom from
tlie court documents. It is called ' ' Spring and Autumn
Annals," the dullest of the five classics, and generally
recognised to be iinreadable except for the notes added b}' a
subsequent disciple. As for the other four, his position is
that of the Hindu J 'rasa (lit. tbe compiler of ancient texts),
to whom we owe the J'edas and Mahdbfia?-ata in their
present forms. Not even that, because there had been
other Chinese Vyasas before him ; and it is to them that the
credit should be given.

{c) The Peers of Sakyasimha

Similarly in painting the intellectual and spiritual
India of the sixth centur}^ B. C. the artist should not cover
the whole canvas with the huge portrait of a Sakj'-asimha.
Sakj-asimha is sureh' a giant, but his peers were as great
giants as himself. It was, in fact, an age of giants, to be
compared with any Augustan era in world's history. The
compatriots and immediate precursors as well as juniors of
Sakyasimha counted among them the Protagorases, the
Anaxagorases, the Socrateses, the Platos and the Aristotles
of Hindusthan — that band of Vyasas. sophists and enc3'^clopaa-
dists to whom we owe in a systematic form the earliest
specimens of Indo-Aryan medicine, chemistry, botau}',
zoology, philology, logic, metaphysics, and sociolog}'.

It was an age of Parishats or academies, permanent
forest-universities, periodical forest-conferences of the mas-
ter-minds, itinerant preachers, Socratic questioners, closet-
recluses, and researchers and investigators into ever3'thing
from sexual science to salvation. Sakyasimha was only
one of the numberless " stormers and stressers" in that
epoch of siiirtn iind drang.

THE PEERS OF .SAKYASIMHA 51

Like the China of those days India also was in the feudal
stage. So much of the country as had received the light
of the Vedic Rishis was divided into a number of royalties,
chieftaincies, and even clan-republics. It was not till about
150 years after Sakyasimha that the people of entire Hindus-
than were to realise and achieve their political unity under
the organising genius of the Maury a Monarch. But as yet
the fact that Sakya was born not on the banks of the
sacred Indus or in chief cities like Benares and Pataliputra
but in a markgrafate ^ the debatable border-land * between
Bengal and Nepal (certainly, to a great extent, the ultima
thule of the enlightened people of those days), indicates
that Aryan culture was not confined only to the metro-
polis and well-established centres of influence but was
gradually bringing "fresh fields and pastures new" under
its sway. Feudal India in the age of Sakyasimha witness-
ed the diffusion and expansion of culture, which, to quote
Merz's remarks about the progress of thought in Feudal
Germany, was "not a stationary power, but continually on
the move from south to north, from west to east, to and fro,
exchanging and recruiting its forces, bringing heterogeneous
elements into close contact, spreading everywhere the seed of
new ideas and discoveries, and preparing new land for still
more extended cultivation."

To mention only a few names among the master-minds
of Sakyasimha 's age. There were the grammarians of the
Panini cycle, whose comprehensive work on Sanskrit lan-
guage stands the most rigorous test of modern philologists as
a monument of logical insight and thorough-going research.
There were the chemists, botanists and zoologists of the

*A non-Aryan sphere of influence, according to Pandit H. P. SAstri of
Calcutta.

52 CHINESE REUGION

Charaka-school whose encyclopaedic work on Avitn'cda (The
Science of Life) continues to be the basis of Hindu medical
practitioners even to-day. Then there were the sociologists
who, following the lead of the eponymous culture-hero Manu,
were the compilers of Dkaffua Sdsiras., Siiifi/i Sdsfras, Niti
Sasfras, etc., each of which is at once the Hindu Yi-king^
and Lt'-kiiig and partially also the SJui-king. It was ou.t
of this class of literature that about 150 years after S&kya-
simha, Kautilya the Finance Minister of the Maurya
Emperor derived materials for the Hindu Ckoii-li., called
the Artha Sastra, the Imperial Gazetteer of India in the
4th-3rd centuries B.C..

Besides, the students of Upanishads and Darsanas,
those systems of psychology, logic and metaphysics, were
a legion. Add to these the scholiasts who took as their
master Veda-Vyasa, or the famous compiler of Vedic
Literature, and we get an idea of the all-round in-
tellectual activity that characterised the life of the people
during the age of Sakya. Nor is this all. There were
innumerable ' orders ' or corporate bodies of wanderers or
hermits. Says Prof. Rhys Davids in Buddhist India: ' ' In
a note to Panini IV. 3,110 there are mentioned two
Brahmin orders, the Karmandinas and the Parasarinas.

* * * In the Majjhima (3, 298), the opinions of a
certain ParasS.riya, a Brahmin teacher, are discussed by the
Buddha." Rhys Davids also mentions several Orders older
than the Sakyan. Also, ' ' the Jains have remained as an
organised community * * * from before the rise of
Buddhism." All these Orders equally "claimed to be pure
as regards means of livelihood, * * * to be unfettered

* * * to be friends; * * * were all mendicants."

REIvATIVITY OF REIvIGION 53

The chapters, " Mahavira's predecessors and disciples'
and "Introduction to Jaina philosophy" in Mrs. Stevenson's
Heart of Jainism furnish also from a new angle an account
of the thought-forces that had b6en moving in the Indian
mind during the 6th century B.C..

There were thus other Nirvanists (Quellers of Misery)
and Salvationists, s])iritual doctors and moralisers, self-
torturists and moksha-st.^&rs, renunciationists and " path "-
finders, theists and non-theists, as well as positivists, hu-
manitarians, and teachers of the 'whole duty of man' besides
Sakyasimha. His were no new-fangled ideas, and he was not
branded as the ' corrupter of youths;' the topics of his talk
were all in the air, the man in the street was equally at
home with those problems and probably also with some of
the solutions. If his contemporaries had reasons to find
fault with him they had equal reasons to find fault with
thousand others. Nor was Pali, the language or dialect in
which Sakya's Analects or discourses, sayings and dialogues
have been preserved, his own improvisation. It had been
growing as the medium of communication all through upper
India especially among the wanderlehrers, paribbajakas,
the peripatetic sophists, itinerant monks, etc., as Prof. Rhys
Davids has carefully pointed out. Naturally, therefore,
like Confucius, Sakya also could not be regarded as a god,
a prophet or even an extraordinary saint in his life-time.
He was only a man among men, not even a demi-god, at
best, the founder of an Order (or Samgha).

Section 3

Development of Traditional Socio-Religious Life

(«) Relativity of Religion to Environment

The historic Jesus of Nazareth is said to have advised

his compatriots to follow the doctrine of Non-Resistance :

54 CHINESE RELIGION

' ' Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. ' ' Another
such quietistic and passivistic announcement was raade
by him when he declared: "My Kingdom is not of this
world."

The Bible is the gospel of political Nirvduiiism (anni-
hilation) and non-secular other- worldlyism , what in latest
phraseology is called Pessimism. It is strange, therefore,
that Schopenhauer, whom nature and the discouraging cir-
cumstances in the national outlook of Young Germany co-
operated to make the arch-prophet of Pessimism in modem
Burope, should try to have his views confirmed by a few
passages from the Indian Upanishads and Dhammapada.
His authority was nearer home, and he might have well re-
marked of the anti-military and an ti -political verses of the
Bible what he said about the Upanishads: "They have
given me solace in life, and they will give me solace in
death." But the pessimistic character of the teachings of
Jesus has been pointed out by another philosopher who has
been recently much in vogue. Nietzsche finds in the
Hindu sociologist Alanu's Code a rational system of social
''values," whereas he condemns the Bible as preaching the
"slave-morality," as teaching exactly the thing which the
quietist Schopenhauer would have appreciated.

Political indifferentism and desire to escape from the
troubles and difficulties of this world into the convenient
other-world of spiritual bliss were characteristics of the
Apocalyptists of the 2nd-lst centuries B.C., who contributed
to the building up of the Bible story. This has been noticed
by historians also. Prof. Dunning of Columbia University
in his History of Political Theories has dealt with the sub-
ject from the rational standpoint of evolutionary sociology.
He accounts for the quietistic pessimism in the declarations

RELATIVITY OF RELIGION 55

of Jesus by reference to the economico-political subjection
of the Jews to the Roman Caesars.

A subject race can have no politics. The Jews had no
scope for advancement in this world. It was out of the
question for them to successfully resist the Romans. "To
render unto Csesar the things that are Csesar's " was a
"virtue of a necessity." As the mediaeval Shylock put it in
Shakespeare's language : ' ' Sufferance is the badge of all
our tribe." To this might be appended : — "And non-re-
sistance is the creed of all our Rishis. ' ' A persecuted and
suffering tribe can evolve out of its inner consciousness
not the philosophy of energism but only the metaphysics
embodied in such siitras as " My Kingdom is not of this
world," or " the Kingdom of God is within you. "

This Historical Method of criticism applied to the inter-
pretation of the Bible may be one-sided to a certain extent.
But it throws light from a new angle and hence requires
to be applied to the study of all the culture-systems of
the world.

It is, however, a very new method even in Europe and
America. It goes without saying that Asiatic Sociology has
not been attacked with this weapon. For as yet sinologues,
indologists, assyriologists and egyptologists have been in-
terested in their sciences mainly as archaeologists, palaeon-
tologists and necrologists, i.e., as students of interesting
curios, specimens of fossils, bones of dead organisms, etc.
A real Biological study of these phenomena as specimens of
living human culture, as expressions of growing vital force
will commence after the pioneers have done their work.

To whom is Plato's Republic intelligible without the
mass of facts bearing on the whole milieu of Hellenic city-
states out of which it grew ? What would be the appreciation

56 CHINESE) RELIGION

of Dante's Divine Comedy and Milton's Paradise Lost with-
out reference to the Catholicism of mediaeval Europe and all
that Puritan England implies? It must be admitted that
as yet neither Confucius nor Sakyasimha, in fact, none of the
philosophers, poets and religious leaders of the Orient have
been placed in their proper historic perspective, i.e., their
socio-economic and political background. We try to under-
stand Asia from single passages, or single books, or single
individuals, or single institutions or single movements !

The difficulty of understanding the religious conscious-
ness or the whole mentality and intellectuality of peoples
who have been extinct or are in very unfavourable position
in modem times would be apparent if we take a simple
instance from successful specimens of to-day. Suppose one
has to interpret England or English mentality or the reli-
gious consciousness of the English people in the year 1915.
Applying the conventional method of interpreting Asia by
such catchwords as "changeless East, " "pessimistic Orient,' '
and " non-aggressive Asiatics" or by single individuals as
when we use the equation "Confucius= China," and the like,
we ask — "Who or what is England? Is it Stopford Brooke or
PVederick Harrison or Bernard Shaw or Kitchener? — or Is it
the Manchester capitalists or the University undergraduates
or Slum-landlords or Labour- Unions ? — or Is it the Times
Book Club or Armstrong & Co. , or the British Museum or
Trafalgar Square? — Or rather is it the Bible or the
Encyclopaedia Britannica?" The question itself seems to
be absurd. And yet we have to be satisfied with answers
to absurd questions regarding Asia.

China is greater than Confucius as India is greater than
Sakyasimha. The religious sentiments and spiritual
activity of the people of both these continents are, therefore,

RELIGION IN THE AGE OF CONFUCIUS 57

more thaii what can be found in the writings, compilations,
sayings or dialogues of these two men.

{b) Chinese Religion in the age of Confucius

As contributing to the picture of Chinese religion in
the 6th century B. C. , it is interesting to know of the legend
that Confucius came to Laotsze to interrogate the great
Taoist sage about the laws and rites of social life. Says
Prof. De Groot — "Although Confucius was evidently no
adherent of the Taoist discipline in its rigorous form, and
certainly no hermit, yet we are not entitled to admit that he
was not a good Taoist. The fact that he piously visited
Laotsze in his retirement is significant ; moreover, according
to two Classics, he explicitly mentioned Taoist retirement
and indiffer^ntism with high praise."

"The very wise and virtuous man,'' said Confucius,
' ' acts and behaves according to the Tao ; * * * but it ^3
only the holy man who can withdraw from the world and
conceal his wisdom without spite. * * * Those who
with eai-nest faith, wish to learn the Tao of natural good-
ness, which protects against death, neither enter a state
which is in danger nor stay in a state where disorder
reigns, ' '

"After reading these classical passages," says De Groot,
' ' we may look with less distrust at a page in Chwang 's
writings which represents Confucius as a most ardent apostle
of Taoism, urging a prominent disciple of his own towards
the cultivation of indifferentism about his own person and
the things around him, and also to the practice of 'inaction. ' ' '

Whatever be the value of the Taoist teachers' story about
the historic Confucius having studied and practised their teach-

5,8 CHINESE REI^IGION

ings, there is no denying the fact that these were as powerful
in his days as in classic times. The mysticism of the
Taoists must not be ignored if we are to get a full view of
Chinese religious ideas. Thus in the classic Book of Rites ^
as De Groot points out, we read of ascetic practices as being
traditional. ' 'In the month of midsummer the growth of the
days reaches the ultimate point, and the Yin and the Yang
commence their annual struggle so that the principles of
death and production separate. Men eminent for virtue and
wisdom then fast ; they conceal themselves somewhere in
their dwellings, where their desires are stilled, where they
do nothing with precipitation, and banish music and lust.
Nobody may enter there ; they must take the smallest
possible quantity of savoury food, and have no well-tasting
mixtures brought to them. They must put their sexual
desires in the background, and set their minds at rest."

Not only did mysticism prevail as of old ; but the
classical socio-religious life seems to have remained entire.
According to Giles ' ' the reeds and the tortoise shell were
still employed, * * we find allusions to fasting. * * *
It appears that fasting and purification were practised for
about ten days before the performance of the sacrifices took
place."

The deities of the earliest Chou Dynasty continued to
receive worship and sacrifices in Confucius' and Laotsze's
time. The pantheon still consisted of the Shangti,
heaven, earth, ancestors, mountains, rivers, elements,
planets, etc. Nor was there anything to counteract the per-
petuation of fetichism, shamanism, denionolatry, charms,
etc. , observed by the Celestials of the classic age. The Vedic
Indians could still live and move easily with the Chinese,
and also with the great Confucius.

REIvIGION IN THE AGE OF CONFUCIUS 59

For Confucius was not the founder of any new school,
religious or moral or educational. Probably his method
was Socratic, and he had pupils, disciples, admirers, and
followers. " Sometimes," it is said, to quote Rev. Bergen's
The Sages of Shantungs "his followers numbered 3,000.
It is not to be assumed that this number was instructed
at any one time, but there were crowds competing to get
within the sound of his voice, and be regarded as attendants
on his lecture.' '

He was a man of encyclopaedic culture. So the topics
of his lectures were diverse. "It is said that he taught
literary criticism, and history. Practical ethics, faithfulness,
honesty, music and poetry were discussed and studied.
Theories of governments, and even metaphysics were
amongst his favourite themes."

His reputation with posterity depends on the Classics
alleged to have been edited by him. His literary work is that
of a historian, not of a philosopher. But as historian, his
chief object was moral. He may be compared to Plutarch
who wrote the Parallel Lives of Greek and Roman celebrities
to inculcate moral lessons. Confucius cared to chronicle the
history of his own state as well as to set his seal upon the
storehouses of information regarding the classic past be-
cause his practical object was to educate the princes and
statesmen by warning as well as by example. But unlike
Plutarch, the Chinese Vyasa did not take the Carlylean view
of history as a "biography of great men."

Prof. Hirth says: — "To reform the social life of his
native land, to lead his contemporaries to adopt a certain
standard of morality as exhibited in their daily doings, was
the main ambition of his work. This standard he
endeavoured to derive from the records of the past. "

60 CHINESE RELIGION

So far as religion was concerned, the Celestials of Con-
fucius' age were not at all affected, by what he did ; because
he had nothing new to give. Rather, his editorship
placed before them as fixed codes the Bibles they had been
traditionally following. His work was not creative in any
sense, but conservative. The old cult of Nature-forces
thus continued to persist in its entirety. And if to future
generations of Chinese, Confucianism has meant simply the
study of the classics, religion in China ma}'- be supposed to
have been the same after as before Confucius and also in
his own age.

Nor did the personal life of Confucius contribute any
new factor to the traditional religion. In the third lecture
Giles has shown that the sage followed in toto everj'^thing
that was done by his contemporaries. He had no ideas of
reform as to the conceptions or practices governing the socio-
religious life of his countrymen. "He believed firmly in a
higher power — the God of his fathers. * * * Not only
did he believe in the existence of this Deity * * * biit
he was conscious, and expressed his consciousness openl3^
that in his teachings he was working under divine guidance. "

Confucius once said : "If my doctrines are to prevail ,
it is so ordered of God ; if they are to fail, it is so ordered
of God. ' ' Yet Confucius has been known to be an atheist
and a positivist, and the Chinese who follow him as a
non-religious people!

Giles remarks further: ' ' Although he would not dis-
cuss in a familiar way \h&pros and cons of belief in an unseen
world, probably because of the solemnit}- of the subject,
he did not hesitate to use the name of the Deity in any
suitable connexion. " As for the Supernatural world, the fol-
lowing opinion of Confucius is recorded in Confucianism and

RELIGION IN THE AGE OF CONFUCIUS 61

its Rivals : ' ' How abundantly do spiritual beings make
their presence manifest among us! We look for them but
do not see them, we listen to them, but do not hear them;
yet they enter into all things, and there is nowhere they
are not. They cause all the people in the world to fast,
and to put on their best clothes, in order to take part in
the sacrifices." What more do we find in the religious
beliefs of Vedic or modern Hindus ? Surely, if the Indians
of any age are religious, so too was Confucius, so too are all
those who call themselves Confucianists.

Confucius believed in sacrifices, and in the existence
and presence of the spirits of the departed dead. He also
sacrificed to his dead ancestors and to spirits in general.
All his life was thus perfectly in accord with the prevailing
religious customs. Both b}'' writings and practice Confucius
was conserving the past. If the Vedist could appreciate
easily the sentiments and tendencies of the Chinese of the
12th century B.C. , he could certainly be quite at home among
the audience of Confucius.

Under these circumstances it seems absurd to ask the
question : " Is Confucianism a religion or simply a system
of morals?" The proper question rather is : "Should
the Chinese religion of the classic age or of the age of
Confucius be called Confucianism? What is the contribution
of Confucius to the making of this religion ?' ' It would have
been clear that Confucianism as a title applied to Chinese
religion down to the 6th century B.C. is a misnomer.
Following the Chinese example, the Hindus would have
called their ancient religion Vyasic simply because Vyasa
happened to be the compiler and editor of the Vedic texts!
The best name for the cult of World-Forces like those in
ancient India and China is SanAianism as devised by the

62 CHINESE REUGIOX

Hindus and Taoism as known to tlie Celestials — -both
implying the idea of Eternal Order or Permanent Way.

The Chinese like the Hindus have ever been prolific
in the invention of gods and goddesses. There are facts to
indicate that the classical Nature-cult did not remain
stationary but passed through various stages of development.
Even the unchanging Chinese change — and they knew how
to change and adapt themselves according to the Zeitgeist
millenniums before the so-called " opening up of China."

The following extracts from the China Review (XIII.
416-18) are quoted to show that deities unknown to people
of the first three or four hundred years of the Chou Dynasty
have been introduced in subsequent periods:

" The worship of the gods of the five elements * * *
appears first in the seventh century before Christ and in
northwestern China, in a region at that time only recently
admitted to China proper. This worship spread afterwards
to other parts of the country. * * *

".In the sixth century before Christ there can be no

doubt that in the countries of Sung and Tsin the brighter

stars of these groups (Scorpio and Orion) were worshipped.
^ ^ ^

"It is then (6th century B.C.) that we find stars wor-
shipped in particular cities and that the twelve signs of the
Zodiac were believed to control the destinies of states.
Particular stars and groups of stars were worshipped in
the supposed causes of fires and such like calamities. * * *
In B.C. 540 there is a more detailed account of the same
worship in the Tso chwen, and at about the same time, in
the Kwo Yu, we find abundant proof that the Chinese
then believed that the various baronies of China were all
controlled by particular stars. ' '

REI/IGION IN THE AGE OF CONFUCIUS 63

The writer goes on to say that ' ' fresh legends unknown
to Confucius were growing up in his time on the Shantung
coast which greatly extended classical records of Chinese
primitive history. " So, after all, the poet's dictum —
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay" —
should not be the starting hypothesis of the sober historian.

Terrien De La Couperies' Western Origi7z is quoted by
Werner for his Chinese Sociology. In this we get evidence of
the additions to, and modifications in, the classical pantheon
of the World- Forces.

"Fire-worship, connected with Astrology, was established
in the state of Sung, some time before B.C. 564. Various new
notions about fire appeared in the 6th century B.C. * * *
Among other innovations were: " A state sacrifice every
year at the vernal equinox for the renewal of fire ; all fire
had to be extinguished three days previously and food
taken cold. The rule was established for the first time in
Tsin (Shansi) by the Marquis Wen (B.C. 636-27)."

It may be remarked by the bye that this is a custom
observed in India even to-day.

Further, ' ' We hear of a new worship of a deity of
fire named Hwei-luh, and of a deity of water named
Hiuen Ming in B.C. 524 in Tcheng (S. Honan) — once only,
as if it were a local affair. * * * The worship of the fire-
goddess Hwei-luh * * * kas become the worship of
the spirit of the hearth, the household fire-god, commonly
called the kitchen-god. It was sacrificed to for the first
time by Hia Futchi, keeper of the ancestral temple of the
state of IvU about B.C. 600. * * * This worship was
not yet an ancient institution at the time of Confucius. "

The following history of the fire-deity is also interest-
ing: "In B.C. 533 it existed in B. Honan, and in the third

64 CHINESE RELIGION

century B.C. it was also flourishing in Kiangsu and
Shansi. It was adopted by the Emperor himself under
the Han dynasty (B.C. 133); at present it has become the
most extensively worshipped divinity of China, the various
names given to it show the successive and different aspects
Under which it was considered. ' '

These and many other facts point inevitably to the
analogy and parallelism between Chinese and Hindu
religious developments as we shall show presently. In
the mean time the remarks of Rhys Davids about the
elasticity, flexibility and adaptability of the Hindu genius
may be deduced from the history of Chinese religion:
"The old gods, i.e. the old ideas, when they have surviv-
ed, have been so much changed; so many of them have
not survived at all, so many new ones have sprung
into vigorous life and wide-reaching influence, that one
conclusion is inevitable. The common view that the
Indians were very difEerent from the other folk in similar
stages of development, that to that difference was due
the stolid, not to say, the stupid, conservatism of their
religious cenceptions, that they were more given to supersti-
tion, less intellectual than, for instance, the Greeks and
Romans, must be given up. * * * f lie j-gal facts lead
to the opposite view — they show a constant progress from
Vedic times onwards. * * * But whatever the facts,
and whatever the reasons for them, we are not likely to
cease from hearing that parrot-cry of self-complacent
ignorance, ' The immovable East ' — the implied sop to
vanity is too sweet to be neglected."

This is the greatest " idola ' ' of the 19th and 20th cen-
turies, for every age has its own idola. The sooner this
superstition of the modern West regarding the Orient be

REI/IGION IN THE AGE OF SAKYASIMHA 65

given up, the easier would be the solution of the ' ' Inter-
Racial Problems," and the better would it be for the
science of Sociology. The world is in need of a Bacon
equipped with the organon of the Historico-Comparative
Method to demolish the unthinking vanities and obstinate
mediasvalisms of the so-called " superior races " in this
the most enlightened age of Culture-History.

(t) Indian Religion in the age of Sakyasimha

Sakyasimha was preeminently a philosopher and meta-
physician. Confucius was mainly a historian and sociologist.
The intellect of Confucius was not vigorous enough to come
out of the struggle with the ' eternal questions ' quite un-
scathed. He, therefore, considered it prudent to leave
them " open" but did not, as we have seen, disbelieve or
demolish them. He was not in any sense an agnostic like
Mill or Huxley. He accommodated himself rather to the
floating notions of the age.

These questions, however, were not left unattacked by
the Chinese mind. Where Confucius dared not enter,
some of his contemporaries were quite at home. Thus,
to quote Suzuki, "there were people who believed that
the cycle of birth and death is an irrevocable ordeal of
nature. This life is merely a temporary abode, and not
the true one. Life means lodging, or sojourning or
tenanting, and death means coming back to its true abode.
Life cannot be said to be better than death or death than
life. Life and death, existence and non-existence, creation
and annihilation, are the inherent law of nature, and the
world must be said to be revolving on an eternal wheel.
The wise man remains serene and unconcerned in the
midst of this revolution ; he lives as if not living. "

66 CHINESE RELIGION

These metaphysical ideas were the common ingredients
in the intellectual solution of both China and India, and
could not be ignored by anybody. Confucius as a weaker
intellectual calmly took them for granted, but Sakyasimha
boldly set out like Laotsze and Mahavira and thousand other
Chinese and Hindu thinkers to contribute his own quota to
the untying of the Gordian knot.

It has been pointed out by every scholar, Hindu as
well as foreign, that there was nothing original in either the
methodology or the achievement of a Sakyasimha or a Maha-
vira; they differed from the existing metaphysicians (e.g.,
those of Chhcindogya Upanishad and Sankhya Darsand) , if
at all, only in the emphasis laid on certain incidents.

Thus, as Mrs. Stevenson says, "the Jaina, in common
with the Buddhists, seem to have accepted as the ground
work of their belief the philosophy of the Brahman Sannya-
sin. They incorporated into their faith the doctrines of
transmigration and Karma without putting a special stamp
on either, but the doctrine of non-killing (^ahimsci), which
they also borrowed, they exalted to a position of primary
importance, and they laid an entirely new emphasis on the
value of austerity both inward and outward. * * * 1*he
Jaina hold that the six schools of philosophy are part and
parcel of an organic whole. ' '

We have already seen how the idea of the sacredness of
sentient beings as embodied in the doctrine of ahimsa was
getting hold of the Hindu mind in the Satapatha Brdkmana.
It is difi&cult, therefore, to believe that the founder of what
has been known as Jainism ever contemplated or actually
effected any revolt from the socio-religious order of the day.
It is doubtful if Mahavira was a Protestant in his metaphy-
sics or theology.

RELIGION IN THE AGE OF SAKYASIMHA 67

This would be all the clearer from MacNicols' Indian
Theism: Jainism and Buddhism are generally regarded as
atheistic and agnostic, but the author points out the theistic
element in both. "And yet a closer examination reveals
the fact that geniiine elements of the theistic tradition were
present specially in Buddhism from its very inception, and
that with the development of the religion these discovered
themselves more and more fully. It is natural indeed that
this should be the case; for those new religions did not, any
more than other religions elsewhere, spring full-grown from
the brains of their founders, nor are they out of organic
relation to the speculation and the devotion that precede
them. * * * Both Jainism and Buddhism are, after all,
phases of the long Hindu development, absorbing elements
from its complexity and responding to certain demands of
the spirit it expresses."

The story that Sakyasimha began his spiritual quest
with lessons from the philosophers of his time and found the
whole encyclopaedia of contemporary Hindu culture inade-
quate to the hunger of his soul, points emphatically to the
intimate connexion with his age. It is like the legend of
Confucius' interview with Laotsze. The following account
of Mahavira's initiation is also interesting as showing the
general trend of Indian thought in the sixth century B.C. :
" Jainism, thougb it denies the existence of a creator and of
the three gods of the Indian trimurti, Brahma, Visnu and
Siva, has never shaken itself free from the belief in many of
the minor gods of the Hindu pantheon. It gives these gods,
it is true, a very secondary position as servants or tempters
of the great Jaina saints, but their existence is accepted as
undoubted; accordingly, in the account of Mahavira's initia-

68 CHINESE REWGION

tion we stall find many of the old Hindu gods represented
as being present. ' '

We have seen that among the Celestials their classical
mentality and religious consciousness expressed themselves
in their entirety in the sixth century B.C.. We have exam-
ined also some of the materials which enable us to get an idea
of the modifications or changes in emphasis that must have
been accomplished through the age-long evolution. So in
Hindusthan the religious consciousness which was exhibited
in the Vedas is apparent to students of Hindu mentality
in the sixth centurj' B.C.. The continuity of the traditional
metaphysics was not broken. Rather it was the age when
the whole philosophic culture of the race got systematised
and codified as " Schools." These schools, therefore, as
embodying the past, constitute the landmarks of an old life.

Confucius believed in the god-lore of his contemporaries
and subscribed unhesitatingly to the whole theological
apparatus and religious laboratory of the time. Sakya-
simha, Mahavira, and some others probably did not believe in
the traditional god-lore. But the god-lore itself remained
entire. It was neither demolished nor got atrophied. On the
other hand, the whole Vedic Mythology came down in a
more concrete and personified form. The vague became
distinct, the metaphors became organisms, the words became
facts. In certain cases the names of the deities changed, in
others their functions changed, while a few new names were
added to the list, and there was a readjustment in the position,
and importance of the members of the Pantheon. All this
was due to the impact of history, race, place, and the people.
It is exactly these modifications in Chinese religion due to
the folk-element and place-element that one would like ta
know. We have noted some of these in the previous Sub-
section (b).

REILIGION IN THE AGE OF SAKYASIMHA 69

The stage of development attained by tlie Nature-cult of
tlie Vedists about the sixth century B.C. is thus described by
Rhys Davids.

" Siri, the goddess of luck, was already a popular deity
in Buddha's time. * * *

' ' Our two poets are naturally anxious to include in
their lists all the various beliefs which had most weight with
those whom they would fain persuade. The poet of the
Mahasamaya (the Great Concourse) enumerates first the
spirits of the Barth and of the great Mountains. Then
the Four Great Kings, the guardians of the four quarters,
Kast and South and West and North. * * *

"Then come the Gandharvas, heavenly musicians,
supposed to preside over child-bearing and birth. * * *

' ' Then come the Nagas, the Siren-serpents, whose
worship has been so important a factor in the folklore,
superstition, and poetry of India from the earliest times
down to to-day. * * *

"Then come the GarulasorGarudas, the Indian counter-
part of the harpy and grifiin, half man, half bird. * * *

' ' Then come a goodly crowd of Titans and sixty kinds
of gods. * * * First we have the gods of kindly nature
and good character, then the souls or spirits supposed to
animate and reside in the moon and the sun, * * * in
the wind, the cloud, the summer heat; then the gods of
light, then a curious list of gods, personifications of various
mental qualities ; then the spirits in the thunder and the
rain, and lastly the great gods who dwell in the highest
heavens. * * *

" In neither of these two lists is Indra, the great god
of the Veda, even mentioned. * * *

70 CHINESE RELIGION

" In the period we are consideriug liad Sakka in his
turn almost ousted Indra. * * *

"It is the same, but in each case in different degrees,
with other Vedic gods. * * * Isana, the vigorous and
3'outhful form of the dread Siva of the future, is ah-eady on a
level with Soma and ^'aruna. And Prajapati and Brahma
will soon come to be considered as co-partners with Sakka
in the over-lordship of the gods. * * * The worship of
Agni is scoffed at. \'ayu the wind-god * * * will
soon also be the laughing stock of the story-teller. \^aruna
is still a power. * * * And ^'ishnu * * * has
scarcely as yet appeared abo\e the horizon. Pajjunna is
still the rain-god in the Suttantas. * * *

' ' I know of no other Vedic gods mentioned in this
literature. D3'aus, Mitra and Savitri, Pushan, the Adityas,
the Aswins, and the Maruts, Aditi and Diti, and Urvasi,
and many more are all departed.' '

Prof. Rhys Davids in his Buddhist India gives the
following account of the folk-religion iu the sixth century
B.C., which is nothing but a continuation of what we found
recorded in the Ailiarva Veda and affords a striking
parallelism to the classical and contemporary religious
practices in China.

' ' We are told of palmistr}^, divination of all sorts,
auguries drawn from the celestial phenomena, prognostica-
tion of dreams, auguries drawn from marks on cloth gnawed
by mice, sacrifices to Agni, * * * oblations of various
sorts to gods, determining lucky sites, repeating charms,
laying ghosts, snake charming, using similar arts on other
beasts and birds, astrology, the power of prophecy, incanta-
tions, oracles, consulting gods through a girl possessed or

REI.IGION IN THE AGE OF SAKYASIMHA 71

by means of mirrors, worshipping tie great one, invoking
Siri (the goddess of luck) , vowing vows to gods, muttering
charms to cause virility or impotence, consecrating sites,
and more of the same kind."

All these superstitions, or "religions of the feeble
minds,' ' or primitive sciences and primitive arts, have existed
both in China and India from time immemorial and are
not yet extinct in either. It may be interesting to note
that " determining lucky sites, " "consecrating sites," etc.,
form the topics of a special branch of Chinese literature
called Fung Shui^ ' ' the science of building houses, graves,
and temples under the beneficial influence of the universe."
We find these ideas in later Sanskrit literature as well, e.g.
in Varahamihira's Brihat Samhita (6th century A.D. ).
Dr. Kdkins in his Chinese Buddhism., and Professor De
Groot in his Religion in China have devoted special chapters
to this branch of learning dealing with jung {i.e. wind)
and shui {i.e. water). The term is exactly equivalent to
the Hindu conception of climate as /ala (water) and Vayu
(wind).

From the accounts of Edkins and De Groot it would
appear that Fung-shui is really a primitive science of
climatology applied to the interests of social welfare.
Thus as De Groot remarks : ' ' The influence which
Heaven and its phenomena, in particular Jung shui or
' wind and rain ' exercise upon Earth is greatly modified by
the configuration of the earth. This simple truth has given
birth to the geomantic doctrine that hills may prevent
noxious winds from striking buildings or tombs. * * *
Windings and bends of rivers and brooks are objects of
studious care." Students of sociology may thus be
interested in Fung-shui as representing the primitive and

72 CHINESE RELIGION

mediaeval Indo-Chinese conceptions relating to the Influence
of Geography on History which in modern times have been
made into a science in such works as Montesquieu's Spirit
of Laws ^ Hegel's Philosophy of History, Buckle's History
of Civilisation and Bagehot's Physics and Politics.

Georg Buhler's Indian Studies is quoted by Rhys Davids
to indicate that the Jdutaka Stories also point to the
continuation of Vedic cult in the age of Sakyasimha and
Mahavira: "Just as the Three Vedas are the basis of the
higher instruction, so the prevalent religion is that of the
path of works with its ceremonies and sacrifices, among
which several, like the Vajapeya and the Rajasuya, are
specially and repeatedly mentioned. Side by side with these
appear popular festivals, celebrated with general merry-mak-
ings and copious libations of Sura^ as well as the worship
of demons and trees, all of which go back to the earliest
times. Nor are the hermits in the woods and the wandering
ascetics unknown."

The Celestial and the Hindu of the sixth century
B.C. lived in the same world of morals, manners and
sentiments. If the Chinese happened to be in India they
would not feel any distance from the natives except only in
language. And if the Hindus happened to be in China
they would enter into the spirit of the Chinese people
in spite of the language-barrier.

Section 4.
Asiatic Positivism

"The whole duty of man " has been preached in every
age and every clime; and conceptions of moral obligations
found in all literatures are almost the same. What we in
modern times are likely to regard as moral truisms or copy-
book maxims abound in every holy book as the ' ' Bightfold

ASIATIC POSITIVISM 73

Path" or "Ten Conunandments" or "The Five Duties. "
It is certainly unhistorical and unphilosophical to make any
sucli formula or sutra the standard by which to test the
worth of the other moral systems of the world. Nor is it
strictly scientific to call a doctrine ' ' positivism ' ' on the
strength of a few moral passages or sayings only.

Unfortuna'tely, this has been done with regard to the
teachings of Confucius in the Analects and the other
works about him compiled by his disciples. If the term
be applied to any inculcation of humanitarian principles
or Social duties and the like, every religion is surely
positivistic and every human being has been a positivist.

If every instance of moral teaching were to be placed in
the category of Positivism, the following Decalogue, quoted
from Suki^aniti^ a mediaeval Sanskrit work, is an embodi-
ment of Positivism :

1. Thou must not forsake your own duty in life.

2. Thou must not tell lies.

3. Thou must not commit adultery.

4. Thou must not bear false witness.

5. Thou must not forge.

6. Thou must not accept bribes.

7. Thou must not extort more than what is due unto

you.

8. Thou must not steal.

9. Thou must not oppress (commit violence).
10. Thou must not rebel (commit perfidy).

Sukraniti I. 613-616.

Such instances of positivistic cult are to be met with
here and there and everywhere in Hindu Literature.

74 CHINESE REI/IGION

We have seen that Confucius the historian and
sociologist took the classical metaphysics for granted, but
Sakyasimha actively contributed to the fund of traditional
metaphysics according to his findings. Further, Confucius
accepted the theology of his people as he found it. Sakya-
simha probably did not accept his contemporary theology at
all ; but neither did he argue it out of existence. The old
cult of World- Forces thus continued its sway in both China
and India, unhampered as of yore, but certainly modified
according to local and tribal conditions.

Strictly speaking, Confucius the man and the historian
was not an atheist or agnostic. And Sakyasimha the philo-
sopher and mystic was probably an agnostic, though theistic
ideas may be traced even in him. But whatever technical
term be applied to the life or writings or sayings of these
men, that term would not be the label for the socio-religious
tendency of their contemporaries; for neither of them
represents his country entirely. Theism, atheism, mysticism,
naturalism, monotheism, polytheism, in fact, every ism^
existed side by side.

In spite of Confucius' faith in God, he has been
wrongly classed with Positivists. His Positivism is deduced
from the Socratic Dialogues illustrative of his views on all
matters.

In his Religion of China Dr. Legge states that Con-
fucius' "greatest achievement in the inculcation of morality
was his formulating the golden rule, which is not found in
its condensed expression in the old classics. The credit of
it is his own. We find it repeatedly in the Analects, the
Doctrine of the Mean^ and the Great Learning. Tsze Kung
once asked him if there were one word which would serve as
a rule of conduct for all the life ; and he replied, " Is not

ASIATIC POSITIVISM 75

reciprocity such a word ? What you do not want done to
yourself, do not do to others. ' '

As has been previously stated, Confucius left the
abstruse questions open. That he himself felt the im-
portance of

Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings,"
is apparent from his life as well as conversations. But
he did not care much to vouchsafe an answer to queries on
those things. The record of his sayings, therefore, must
not be regarded as a complete biography or auto-biography.

As it is, we get his moral creed in the following quota-
tion from Ku Hung Ming's translation of the classic called
by him ' ' The Universal Order or Conduct of Life' ' (known
as Doctrine of the Mean in Legge's versions) :

' ' When a man carries out the principles of conscien-
tiousness and reciprocity he is not far from tie moral law.
What you do not wish others should do unto you, do not do
unto them."

"There are four things in the moral life of a man, not
one of which have I been able to carry out in my life. To
serve my father as I would expect my son to serve me: that
I have not been able to do. To serve my sovereign as I
would expect a minister to serve me : that I have not been
able to do. To act towards my elder brother as I would
expect my younger brother to act towards me : that I have
not been able to do. To be the first to behave towards
friends as I would expect them to behave towards me : that
I have not been able to do. ' '

"The duties of universal obligation are five, and the
moral qualities by which they are carried out are three.

76 CHINESE RELIGIOX

The duties are those between ruler and subject; between
father and son ; between husband and wife ; between elder
brother and younger ; and those in the intercourse between
friends. These are the five duties of universal obligation.
Intelligence, moral character and courage : these are the
three universally recognised moral qualities of man. ' '

This is the so-called Positivism of Confucius who never
repudiated God or Divinity as an idea or ideal. However,
we get here a picture of the code of morals which prevailed
among the Celestials of the sixth centurj- B.C. and has
become stereotyped for all generations. This has been
called by some as the Cult of " Propriety " or Good Manners.
Mr. Ku Hung Ming calls it the "religion of good citizen-
ship " in his Spirit of the Chinese People.

It is interesting to note that the word Sila in
Buddhist literature is the exact equivalent of " Propriety,"
and that the ' ' Eight-fold Path ' ' described in the Digha-
Nikaya (Sutta 22) contains some of the rules embodied in
the Confucian Catechism. Says Hackmann in Btiddhism as
a Religion : ' ' He who wants to get at the details of these
duties may turn to writings such as Mangala Sutta, the
Dhammapada, and the Sigdlazcdda. They set forth the
duties of parent and child, of teacher and pupil, of husband
and wife, of friend and friend, of master and servant, of
laymen toward the religious institutions."

Besides, it is also remarkable that in the age when
Nirvana^ renunciation, other- worldly ism, were being preach-
ed by the followers of more than one Sakyasimha and one
Mahavira, such humanitarian ethics and secular or non-
mystical morality as we find in the Edicts of Asoka (3rd cen-
tury B.C.) should have been predominant. But such a pheno-
menon should not strike as strange to those who would take

ASIATIC POSITIVISM 77

the syntlietic view of socio-religious life. History does not
fumisli data as to the immediate influence of Nirv&nistic
teachings on the contemporaries of Sakya. But what we do
get, after the lapse of two hundred years, is the strong
centralised Imperialism of a Chandragupta, the worshipper
of Nature- Forces, and the "enlightened" Caesaro-Papism
of his grand son Asoka. Surely the Sakyasimhans had not
extinguished or enervated the political and military genius
of the Hindu race.

The following has been summarized from some of the
Edicts of Asoka by Rhys Davids for his Buddhist India:

1. No animal may be slaughtered for sacrifice.

2. Tribal feasts in high places are not to be celebrated.

3. Docility to parents is good.

4. Liberality to friends, acquaintances and relatives,
and to Brahmins and recluses is good.

5. Not to injure living beings is good.

6. Economy in expenditure, and avoiding disputes is

good.

7. Self-mastery

are always possible and -excellent

8. Purity of heart , ^^^^ ^^^ ^j^^ ^^^ ^j^^ -g ^^^ ^^^^

9. Gratitude ^^ ^^ ^^1^ ^^ ^^^^ largely.

10. Fidelity J

11. People perform rites or ceremonies for luck on
occasion of sickness, weddings, childbirth, on starting on a
journey — corrupt and worthless ceremonies. Now there is
a lucky ceremony that may be performed — not worthless
like those, but full of fruit — the lucky ceremony of the
Dhanima. And there is included right conduct towards
slaves and servants, honour towards teachers, self-restraint
towards living things, liberality to Brahmins and recluses.
These things and others such as these are the lucky

78 CHINESE REI.IGION

ceremony according to the Dhamma. Therefore should one
— whether father or son or brother or master — interfere and
say : " So is right. Thus should the ceremony be done to
lasting profit. " People say liberality is good. But no gift,
no aid is so good as giving to others the gift of the Dhamma,
as aiding others to gain the Dhamma.

12. Toleration. Honours'should be paid to all, laymen
and recluses alike, belonging to other sects. No one should
disparage other sects to exalt his own. Self-restraint in
word is the right thing. And let a man seek rather after
the growth in his own sect of the essence of the matter,

13. The Dhamma is good. But what is the Dhamma? ,
The having but little, in one's own mind, of the Intoxica-
tions, doing many benefits to others ; compassion, liberality;
truth ; purity.

14. Man sees but his good deeds, saying : "This good
act have I done." Man sees not at all his evil deeds,
saying: "That bad act have I done, that act is corruption."
Such self-examination is hard. Yet must a man watch over
himself, saying: "Such and such acts lead to corruption,
— such as brutality, cruelty, anger and pride. I will
zealously see to it that I slander not out of envy. That will
be to my advantage in this world ; to my advantage,
verily, in the world to come. "

The greatest and most renowned devotee of the so-called
arch-pessimist of the world was also the most pronounced
positivist ! As Hackmann remarks : " It is so much the
more interesting, to see how Buddhism works through a
gifted and influential layman, full of character. All the
King's inscriptions prove that he draws from his religion a
strengthening of moral efEort, a consciousness of duty, a
devotion to public welfare." I need only point out that

ASIATIC POSITIVISM 79

the religioa or morality of good citizenship, social service
and humanitarianism iias been in India along with, in spite
of, and even in and through, every so-called ism. One word
Nirvana — does not explain three thousand years of Hindu
culture.

Further, it requires to be stated that Sakyasimha's
teachings were not meant for ascetics and Rosicrucians alone.
He catered for the spiritual needs of the householders and
citizens as well. Such anti-domestic and anti-social state-
ments as have been fathered upon Jesus are never recorded
among the sayings of the Plindu Nirvanist (Queller of
Misery). He came to show the path to the extinction
(^Nirvana) of pain but did not make 2. forte of the so-called
' ' escape from life. ' '

The Syrian Saviour announced emphatically :

' ' He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not
worthy of Me " (Matt. 10: H).

"If any man cometh unto Me, and hateth not his father
and mother and wife and children, he cannot be My
disciple." (Luke 14: 26).

On the other hand, the Hindu Saviour taught the Eight-
fold Path. The Digha Nikdya (Sutta 22) in Pali language
describes the " noble truth of the path leading to the
cessation of misery.' ' Warren in his Buddhism in Transla-
tions has given the eight terms as right belief, right re-
solve, right speech, right behaviour, right occupation, right
effort, right contemplation, and right concentration. And
all this as much for husbands and wives, as for monks and
nuns.

CHAPTER IV.

The Religion of Empire-Building— Neutrality

and Eclecticism

(B.C. 350—100 B.C.)

Section 1.

The Political Milieu

(rt) Imperialism and Laisser faire

Confucius died in B.C. 479. The political history of
China for the next two centuries and a half repeats the
previous tale of feudalistic disintegration. It is the period
of " contending states," as Hirth calls it, like the Heptarchy
in England; and nothing of political importance can be
observed till the establishment of the hegemony of Tsin state
in B.C. 249. Shi Hwang Ti, the "first Emperor" of all
China, began his reign in B.C. 221, which lasted only for ten
years. The Tsin dynasty was succeeded by the House of
Han (B.C. 210-A.D. 220) which lasted for four centuries.
The sixth Enaperor of this dynasty was Wu Ti who reigned
for fifty-four years (B.C. 140-87), one of the most illustrious
among the rulers of China.

In India Sakyasimha died in B.C. 483. The political
history of India for the next century and a half may
be supposed to repeat the story of the old struggle for over-
lordship, though documentary evidences are wanting. But
by B.C. 322, the hegemony of Magadha state is established
and Chandragupta is found to be at its helm. He reigns

IMPERIALISM AND LAISSER FAIRE 81

from B.C. 322 to 298, and his grandson Asoka from 270 to
230 as the contemporary of the First Chinese Bmperor.

The period is characterised by one and the same idea in
both the countries. It is the epoch of nationalism, of a
strong unified rule, and of a vast Imperialistic organisation.
The land of the Celestial people gets a common name
'China' from the Tsin state which is instrumental in this
unification; and ' 'for the first time in the history of India
there is one authority ftom Afghanistan across the continent
eastward to Bengal, and from the Himalayas down to the
Central Provinces." The boundaries of this Indian Empire
are further extended by Asoka so as to include the whole of
Southern India excepting the extreme south which remains
feudatory.

In external relations, also, the two countries present
a striking parallelism. For the Chinese Napoleon com-
mences at once the completion of the Great Wall to defend
his empire against the inroads of the 'barbarian' Tartars or
Mongols. And the Indian Napoleon commences his life*
work by vanquishing the vanity of the barbarian Seleukos,
the ruler of the Hellenistic Syria, who had invaded India.

The Year No. I of Chandragupta's Imperialism is his
brilliant victory over this mlechchha (foreigner). It is with
this fact that Indian political history, of which records have
been preserved, really begins.

Referring to Greek invasion, however, Matthew Arnold
started the superstition, now common to every westerner :
" The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain ;
She let the legions thunder past.
And plunged in thought again."

82 CHINESE RELIGION

Even Mr. Vincent Smith, who is generally very sober,
devotes a disproportionately large space to Alexander's cam-
paign in his Early History of India. Strictly speaking,
these researches should be incorporated with the investiga-
tions of Professors Mahaffy and Bur3'^ and have no place
in a textbook of Indian history. The account of Alexander's
expedition may loom large to students of Greece as
a World-Power but is an incubus on the students of Indian
civilisation. Besides, Mr. Smith himself admits that Alex-
ander's enterprise did not leave any impression on India.

India did not " plunge in thought again. " Says Rhys
Davids: "At the end of the fourth century B.C., Seleukos
Nikator, then at the height of his power, attempted to rival
Alexander by invading India. But he met with a very
different foe. * * * Seleukos found the consolidated
and organised empire of Magadha against which all his
efforts were in vain. After an unsuccessful campaign he
was glad to escape by ceding all his provinces - west of the
Indus, including Gedrosia and Arachosia (about equal to the
Afghanistan of to-day), and by giving his daughter in
marriage to the victorious Emperor of India in exchange
for five hundred elephants of war."

Nit vanism of the Sakyasimhas did not militate against
the establishment of the Indian Empire and the triumph over
a foreign foe. About B.C. 300 India was not only a first-
class power but the first power of the world, and Pataliputra,
the capital, was the centre of gravity of the international
system. The Hindus maintained this position unrivalled
for a full century. It was only towards its close that
Chinese Imperialism began to share with the Indian the
same importance as a World-Power. Roman. Imperialism

IMPERIALISM AND LAISSER FAIRE) 83

was not yet conceived. Neither Sianfu, nor any of the
Alexandrias, nor Rome, could thus vie with Pataliputra in
its political prestige and diplomatic importance.

A natural concomitant of Imperialism both in China
and India was the spirit of eclecticism and laisser faire in
matters religious. It may seem to be a paradox to say that
Shi Hwang Ti, the 'Burner of the Books, ' was not possessed
by a Papal doctrine of ' ' Infallibility, ' ' and that he was not a
bigot but a tolerant monarch. It is true, however, that this
destroyer of Confucian literature was not a despiser of the
Confucian morality and theology. He was a Confucianist of
Confucianists for he respected the Classical gods and also
added some to their list. He was really an enemy of the
literati^ those obscurantists, v/hose "words, words, words"
stood in the way of his mission. A nation-maker cannot
afford to be a dogmatist, a strict follower of the letter, for it
is the "letter that killeth." The Chinese Napoleon,
therefore, abolish'ed the Confucian dogma, but preserved its
spirit, viz., the Cult of World- Forces. The Confucian
pedantocracy represents, as I have said, the last link of an
old chain, not the first of a new.

The first link of the new chain could be forged by a
man who, like Alexander, knew how to harmonize the folk-
customs and traditions with all the speculative tendencies of
his time, and harness them all to the great work of Empire-
building. The burner of the classics was himself a Classicist
and also a Taoist. It is thus a far cry from Confucius to Shi
Hwang Ti. The Zeitgeist of the 3rd century B.C. was
represented not by the ' ' Perfect Sage' ' but by the ' 'First
Kmperor." This spirit of toleration and synthesis was notice-
able also in the Han Emperor Wu Ti who was at once a
patron of Confucianists as well as of Taoists.

84 CHINESE RELIGION

Professor Fenollosa in his Epochs of Chinese and
Japanese Art draws almost a similar picture of the first
Chinese Imperialist: "He brought the past consciously to
an end, because he wished to rebuild with new stones ; thus
causing the burning of all past books, especially those which
dealt with the endless disputations of the Confucian and
Taoist philosophers. If there were any philosophy at all in
this brief meteoric career, it was a sort of Nietzscheism
backing raw freedom and force against formalism. "

In fact, like the European and American of to-day
addressing the Chinaman, Shi Hwangti may be imagined
as having addressed the manes of the Great Sage thus :

' ' There are more things in heaven and earth, Confucius,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
The same tendency is observable in India also. The
great monarchs Chandragupta and Asoka were no hidebound
pedants. Whatever their personal faiths, they knew that
their function was not to advocate one of other of the pre-
vailing isms^ but to elaborate a new Imperialistic creed
which should be quite independent of all. Their mission was
not to be fulfilled by making the State subordinate to one or
other of the speculative systems of the age. The Zeitgeist
wab' therefore repfesetited not by IVirvdnism, or Yogaism or
tlpaiiishadism ^ or Jainism , huthy the policy of let-alone and'
non-intervention so far as the people's views were concerned.
The State cared solely for the systematic Carrying out of a
propaganda according to the- finaticial, economic, political
and militaristic teachings recorded in the Arthasdstra* of
Kautilya.

* This difficult Sanskrit; work has been translated into English by-
Mr. R. Shamashastri for the Mysore Government and its materials utilised by
Mr. Nareu L,aw in his Hindu Polity.

HINDU BUSeiDO AND INDONO DAMASHII 85

(^). Hindu Bushido and Indono Damashii.

We do not know exactly wliat was the personal faith
of Chandragupta. The followers of Mahavira claim him
for a Jaina. According to Hackmann in Buddhism as a
Religion^ "Chandragupta himself was not a Buddhist; he
was on far more friendly terms with the Brahmans, and
it was the same with his son Bindusara. " And those
modern scholars, who take their cue from a Schopenhauer,
a Matthew Arnold and a Kipling in trying to understand
India, need note that Megasthenes, the Head of the
Hellenistic Embassy at Pataliputra, observed nothing of
the so-called Nirvanism, quietism and pessimism. Says
Hackmann: "From the fragments of them * * we
learn as to matters of importance very little about Buddhism.
Megasthenes names the Buddhists as ' Sramanai, ' and says
that they were opposed to the 'Brahmanai.' But his
description of their mode of life is vague, and he seems to
mix the Buddhists up with other Indian sects."

This was perfectly natural, because Megasthenes came
with his eyes open. He was not obsessed by any precon-
ceived theory. He had not also the hypothesis of his own
race as being superior. Rather he knew that he was
living as a guest of the first power of the world. By
the test of war Megasthenes the Greek belonged to an
inferior race — he was the ambassador from a humiliated
second-class power.

So in Pataliputra, the city of the Bast, this representative
of the West noticed not the predominance of any non-secular
and transcendental speculation but the apotheosis of
Imperialism and all-round Eclecticism. The morality of
the age can be expressed in the terms of Sukratdii, which

86 Chinese; religion

though a later compilation, does really represent the Niti or
rules of life that have been prevalent since the age of
Kautilya. The following is a translation from the Sanskrit
texts edited by Gustav Oppert for the Government of
Madras :

"Even Brahmanas should fight if there have been
aggressions on women and priests or there has been a killing
of cows. * ■" * (IV. vii. 599. )

The man who runs away from battle is surely killed by
the gods. * * * (IV. vii. 601).

The life of even the Brahman who fights when attacked
is praised in this world, for the virtue of a Kshatriya is
derived also from Brahma. (IV- vii. 606-7) .

The death of Kshatriyas in the bed is a sin. The man
who gets death with an unhurt body by excreting cough and
biles and crying aloud is not a Kshatriya. Men learned in
ancient history do not praise such a state of things. Death
in the home except in a fight is not laudable. Cowardice is
a miserable sin. (IV. vii. 606-13).

The Kshatriya who retreats with a bleeding body after
sustaining defeat in .battles and is encircled by family-
members deserves death. (IV- vii. 614-15).

Kings who valorously fight and kill each other iu
battles are sure to attain heaven. He also gets eternal
bliss who fights for his master at the head of the army and
does not shrink through fear. (IV. vii. 616-19).

People should not regret the death of the brave man
who is killed in battles. The man is purged and delivered
of all sins and attains heaven. (IV. vii. 620-21).

The fairies of the other world vie with each other in
reaching the warrior who is killed in battles in the hope that
he be their husband. (IV. vii. 622-23).

HINDU BUSHIDO AND INDONO DAMASHII 87

The great position that is attained by the sages after
long and tedious penances is immediately reached by
warriors who meet death in warfare. (IV. vii. 624-25.)

The rascal who flies from a fight to save his life is
really dead though alive, and endures the sins of the whole
people. (IV. vii. 656-7).

When the Kshatriyas have become effete, and the

people are being oppressed by lower orders of men, the

'Brahmans should fight and extirpate them (IV. vii. 666-7). ' '

This Kshatriyaism is Bushido according to Japanese
notions, Chivalry in mediaeval European phraseology,
militarism in modern parlance. You may call this the
spirit of Sparta, or if you like, Prussian ism.

Another aspect of Hindu Chivalry is being described
from the authoritative Laws of Manu, the Moses of India.
This work is generally recognised as older than Chandra-
gupta and may be as old as Sakya (though, in its present
form, probably as late as fourth century A.D.):

" Let the soldier, good in battle, never guilefully con-
ceal

(Wherewithal to smite the unwary) in his staff the
treacherous steel ;

Let him scorn to barb his javelin — let the valiant never
anoint

With fell-poison juice his arrows, never put fire upon
the point.

In his car or on his war-horse, should he chance his foe
to meet,

Let him smite not if he find him lighted down upon his
feet.

88 CHINESE ■ RELIGION

I^et him spare one standing suppliant, witli liis closed

' hands raised on high,
Spare him whom his long hair loosen'd blinds and

hinders from to fly, —
Spare him if he sink exhausted ; spare if he for life

crave ;
Spare him crying out for mercy, ' Take me, for I am
thy slave.'
■ Still remembering his duty, never let the soldier smite
One unarm 'd, defenceless, mourning for one fallen in

the fight ;
Never strike the sadly wounded — never let the brave

attack
One by sudden terror smitten, turning in base flight

his back ;
He, that flying from battle, by his foe is slaughter'd

there,
All the burthen of his captain's sin hereafter shall he

bear."
The translation is by Griffith. In these declarations by
the Hindu International legists of Manu's School at least
2500 years ago we seem to be reading the latest resolutions
of the ' Concert of Europe' at their Hague Conferences
and the pious wishes of Peace-apostles like Larnegie.

As with Chandragupta, so with Asoka the contem-
porary of Shi Hwang-Ti. It is a far cry from the dogma
of the historic S^kyasimha to the Dhamma proclaimed by
Asoka. Besides, Asoka was a nationalist, i.e., an Imperial-
ist first, and a follower of Dhamma afterwards.

Imperialists must necessarily be neutral in religious
policy and eclectic in personal life unless they choose to fail
like a Philip II of Spain, a Louis XIV of France, an Aurangzib

HINDU BUSHIDO AND INDONO DAMASHII 89

of India, or a James II of England. Asoka's Kdicts are there- ,
fore neither the fiery fulminations of ban and anathema
and a Bull of excommunication ; — nor the autocratic pro-
clamations of a so-called state- religion such as was embodied
in the Inquisition, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
the Re-imposition of the Jizya, or the arbitrary Declaration
of Indulgence. They are the sober and sedate expressions
of a social-service-propaganda and a universal moral sense
to which nobody in the world could object. Eike his Chinese
contemporary, Asoka was harsh towards pedants, e.g., the
Brahmans, and did not like their sacrifices, but had no
objection' to Brahmans as such. Rather, he made tolera-
tion an important article of his faith.

Such religious neutrality, toleration and eclecticism
have been exhibited by the Asoka of Modern Asia.
Mutshuito the Great of Japan is inspired by the same sanity
of good sense and liberalism in his formulation of the Educa-
tional Rescript which characterises the " Meiji " Era or
Epoch of "Enlightenment" in Dai Nippon. Like the
"enlightened despot" of the third century B.C. the Mikado
assumes the position of a schoolmaster. The picture is that
of an Emperor, with a jerula in hand, administering to the
whole empire as to an elementary school homoeopathic doses
of common-sense morality. The Proclamation is in the
right patriarchal style, — comparable in its austere dignity
and earnestness with the historic edicts of the Indian
Emperor, and breathes the simple eloquence of the "Ten
Commandments ' ' though there is no mention of God in it :
"Know ye, Our subjects.

Our Imperial Ancestors have founded our Empire on a
basis broad and everlasting and have deeply and firmly
implanted virtue ; our subjects ever united in loyalty and

90 Chinese; reivIgion

filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated
the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental
character of our Empire, and herein also lies the source of
our Education. Ye, our subjects, be filial to your parents,
affectionate to your brothers and sisters ; as husbands and
wives be harmonious, as friends true; bear yourselves in
modesty and moderation ; extend your benevolence to all ;
pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop
intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers ; furthermore
advance public good and promote common interests ; always
respect the constitution and observe the laws ; should
emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the state ;
and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Oiir Imperial
Throne coeval with heaven and earth. So shall ye not only
be our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious
the best traditions of your forefathers.

The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeath-
ed by our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by their
descendants and the subjects, infallible for all ages and
true in all places. It is Our wish to lay it to heart in all
reverence, in common with you, our subjects, that we may
all thus attain to the same virtue. ' '

This Imperial Michz, i.e., "Way" or Tao or Magga
is neither Shintoism nor Confucianism, nor Buddhism, nor
Christianity, and yet in a sense it is all. In fact, here is
Yamato Damas/m, the spirit of Japan. So also the Dhanima
of Asoka embodies Indono Damashn, the spirit of Hindu-
sthan rather than any tsm. It is not necessary to connect
or identify Asoka' s creed or "way" with any of the isms of
his day. Like one of his illustrious successors, Akbar the
Great, he may be credited with having founded a new faith.
Philosophically speaking, it was a practical morality evolved

HINDU BUSHIDO AND INDONO DAMASHII 91

eclectically out of the thousand and one isms floating in
the air. Historically, it may be traced to the positivistic
element of Sakyasimha's teachings or to the same element
in others' teachings as well. Rhys Davids observes:
"The doctrine, as an ideal, must have been already
widely accepted. * * * But how sane the grasp
of things most difi&cult to grasp! How simple, how
true, how tolerant, his view of conduct and life! How free
from all the superstitions that dominated so many minds,
then as now, in East and West alike!"

In personal life Asoka may have been a daily reciter
of Pali Tripitaka and a monk of the Sakyan Order. But the
statecraft enunciated in his Dhamnia was not Sakyaism.
The Dhamma was a distinctively new force meant to govern
the life and thought of the day. To ignore this is to ignore
the laws of social evolution and ignore the philosophy of
history.

It is absurd to suppose that Shintoism or Buddhism
explains modern Japan. It is absurd to believe that the
primitive Christian doctrine, e.g., "The Kingdom of God is
within you," had any significance in Mediaeval Europe when
Guelphs and Ghibellins were flying at each others' throats
in every city and every state. It is childish to think that
modern Germany can be understood solely on the strength
of such terms as the Classicism of a Goethe, the Idealism
and Romanticism of a Eichte and a Pestalozzi, or the
Zollverein of a Frederick List, without reference to all that
the name Bismarck connotes. It is equally absurd to try to
explain China and India of the third century B.C. and
after by ignoring the Napoleonism of Shi Hwangti and
the Machiavellism of Kautilya and the Dhamma of Asoka.

92 CHtS-ESE RELIGIOX

Chandragupta, Asoka, Shi Hwangti and Wu Ti are at
least as powerful names in cultnre-liistor\' as SSkyasimha,
Mahavira, Confucius and Laotsze. Ttey were, in fact, the
great protagonists in the drama of contemporary life, having
pushed every other character into the back-ground. The
Old super-annuat^ doctrines were given the go-by in the
denotiement; so that to the post-^Iauryan Hindns and the
later Hans the "new sun rose bringing the new year.'
There was no longer a Sakya the moralist, but a Buddha the
god, one of those whom Sakya had most probably repudiated.
Xo longer a Confucius the librarian-sage of Ixx), but a Con-
fucius the god, a colleague of Shangti.

Section 2.

Internationalism

(fl) Western Asia axd India

A most striking feature of this epoch both for China
and India is its pre-eminently international and cosmopolitan
character. The origin of this internationalism is, however,
due neither to the Hindus nor to the Chinese, nor even to
their western colleagues the Hellenes, but to one who was
a "barbarian'" to all these peoples. This was the Macedo-
nian Alexander.

The ever-fighting city-states of Greece could not protect
their freedom against the monarchical resources of Alexan-
der's father, nor did they present a united front against him.
So Alexander succeeded Philip to a rich conquest. \Vith
him the old spirit of Hellas had no charm. He had no
Hellenic traditions. He began his life-work, therefore, by
abolishing, first, the republican form of government, and
-secondly, the parochial nationalisms of the people. Then he

WESTERN ASIA AND INDIA 9 J

Started on a world-conquest wliicli was as mucli intellectual
as physical. To students of science his expedition looks like
the campaign of modern anthropologists, archaeologists and
naturalists. The pupil of Aristotle had mastered his com-
parative, historical and inductive methods quite well, though
he rejected his system of city-states. So throughout his
expedition he never forgot to bring about social and marital
alliances between Bast and West, and to facilitate compari-
sons between facts of the same order by founding libraries,
museums, gardens, etc. The whole route began to be dotted
with Alexahdrias, the nucleuses of race-mixture, culture^
fusion, and wedlock between Asia and Burope, the gan-
glionic centres of an all-round eclecticism.

Alexander with his world-sense was altogether a new
phenomenon in history. This conscious internationalism
was a new force and left its stamp on Western Asia, Bgypt,
and Greece, the principal field of its applicatibn, and to a
certain extent on India and China. For centuries after
the premature death of Alexander in B.C. 320 the spirit of
Alexander dbminated every part of Asia and Burope. Signs
of the bridging of the gulf attempted and partially achieved
by this greatest of idealists need be read (though With great
caution) in every important item of world's pre-Christian
Culture.

It seems that Chandragupta had"; caught something
of the great conqueror's internationalism, while a mere
adventurer in the Punjab. Hence his acceptance of
the daughter of Seleukos as wife. The marriage of a
Hindu monarch with a Greek princess was an epoch-making
event in Indian history like the expulsion of the foreigner.
But such marriages were not few and far between in those
days. It was probably an epoch" of inter-racial marriages.

94 Chinese; religion

Metropolitan life, e.g., at Pataliputra, was intensely intei-
national. Its position as the diplomatic centre of the world
naturally made it the headquarters of foreign Bmbassies.
Rhys Davids suggests the following picture : ' 'And with the
princess and her suite, and the ambassador and his, not to
■speak of the Greek artists and artisans emploj'ed at the
court, there must have been quite a considerable Greek
community, about B.C. 300, at the distant city on the
southern bank of the Ganges." Mr. Vincent Smith
remarks in his Early History of India that "the Maurya
Bmpire in the 3rd century B.C. was in constant intercourse
with foreign states, and that large numbers of strangers
visited the capital on business. ' ' Further, ' ' all foreigners
were closely watched by ofi&cials who provided suitable
lodgings, escorts, and in case of need, medical attendance."
According to this scholar, Hindu intercourse with Persians
was greater than that with Greeks.

Internationalism inaugurated by Chandragupta con-
tinued under his successors. According to Lloyd in The
Creed of Half Japan, while Bindusara (B.C. 297-272) "was
•on the throne, the king of Bgypt sent an embassy, under a
•certain Dionysus, to Pataliputra; and on one occasion he
wrote a letter to Antiochus, king of Syria, asking to have a
professor of Greek sent to him. Greek writers speak of
him * * * that he adopted the Sanskrit title Amitra-
ghati, the slayer of his foes. ' '

Asoka also was a great internationalist. He cherished
the ambition of being a world-monarch. In the 13th edict
vi^e read of his embassies to the kings of Syria, Egypt,
Macedonia, Epirus, and Kyrene, to the Cholas and Pandyas
in South India, to Ceylon and to the peoples dwelling on the
borders of his empire. The missionaries sent out by him to

WESTERN ASIA AND INDIA 95

various parts of the world were as mucli secular as relig-
ious — at once the St. Augustines, Alcuins and Sir Thomas
Roes of Hindusthan. Himself combining the functions of a
Csesar and a Pope, Asoka's 'legates,' those 'hands and eyes,'
were necessarily the plenipotentiaries and consul-generals
for his empire.

Mr. Llbyd gives a detailed account of Asoka's mission-
ary activity. ' ' These sovereigns and peoples Asoka ad-
dresses mainly on two subjects — care for the health and
welfare of the people, and 'true conquest' over themselves
and their passions. " He refers to the "Greek merchants
trading and travelling in India, whose votive inscriptions
have been found in ancient Buddhist temples in the
peninsula."

We read: — "It was to Antiochus I. (of Syria) that
Asoka had applied for assistance as to medicinal herbs.
* * * In the wars which Antiochus I. waged against the
Gauls and Celts * * * he had used elephants which he,
like his contemporary, Pyrrhus of Epirus, had obtained
from Asoka's father, Bindusara. =5= * *

Macedonia must have been full of men who had been in
Central Asia and^India in those days of constant coming and
going, and there must have been a great interest taken in
things Indian. * * *

Among the dialogues of Aristippus the founder of the
Cyrenaic School of Philosophy, there was one which bore
the name of Porus, a name well known among Indian
kings. * * *

Alexandria was connected with India by at least three
routes. A certain amount of the overland traffic from
China came into Alexandria via Palestine (which was in the

96 CHINESE RELIGION

Egyptian sphere of influence), and even tlie superior
attractions of Antioch could not kill tliis commerce, whicli
was, however, more Central and Eastern Asian than Indian.
A further contingent of caravans brought in Indian goods
via the Persian Gulf, Palmyra (later) and Palestine. The
Egyptian ports in the Red , Sea had direct communication,
without any serious rivals, with the Indian ports at the
mouth of the Indus. "

Internationalism must have continued during the
post-Asokan times also. For Sewell remarks in The
Imperial Gazetteer of India ^ Vol, II. on the commerce
of the period from B.C. 200 to A.D. 250 : " There was trade
both overland and by sea with Western Asia, Greece, Rome
and Egypt, as well as with China and the East. * *
Pliny mentions vast quantities of specie that found its way
every year from Rome to India. ' ' And for the same period
in Northwestern India there was great intercourse with
Rome during the ascendency of the Kushans.

{V) Central Asia and China.

The earl}' history of the intercourse of China with
foreigners is not yet clear. Scholars like Lacouperie have
been assiduous in proving the connexion of the Celestials
with the Hindus, Persians and Babylonians from pre-
Sakyan and pre-Confucian times. Astrological notions,
totemistic practices and some of the superstitions, as well as
the whole Taoistic metaph3'sics and 'hocuspocus' have been
traced to foreign sources. Even the theory has been started
that the first Emperor Shi Hwang Ti, the contemporary of
Asoka, "was in some way connected" with the Maurya
Dynasty of India. And there is a tradition that Buddhism
first came to China about B. C. 21 7.

CENTRAIv ASIA AND CHINA 97

Incontestable evidences are not forthcoming. Hence
Hirth, the great authority on the ancient period of Chinese
history, is sceptical about any foreign relations of China
before Wu Ti's time. And yet he is compelled to criticise
himself thus :

"We possess the inost plausible arguments for the
introduction of foreign influences in Chinese culture at the
time when relations with Western Asia were opened under
the Emperor Wu Ti at the end of the second century B.C.;
but if we examine numerous facts still on record as referring
to times immediately preceding the Wu Ti period we are
bound to notice that changes of a different kind had come
over the Chinese of this as compared with those of the
Confucian and pre-Confucian periods. The growing
influence of foreign elements from Tsin in the west, Chau
in the north, and Chu in the south may account for this.
* * * Lau-tzi, as a native of the state of Chu, was born
and probably brought up among the southern barbarians. ' '

Further: — "Altogether, readers of the history of Chau,
as represented in Ssima-Tsien's account, will receive the
impression that it contains various prognostics of that
important change in cultural life which became dominant
in the age of Tsin Shi Hwang Ti ; namely a Tartarised
China, the traditional Confucian views of life having been
supplanted by Tartar, Scythian, Hunnic or Turkish
elements, elements that, whatever name we may give them,
had grown out of the national life of Central Asiatic
foreigners."

Just as Western Asia plays an important part in Indian
history of the 3rd century B.C., so Central Asia, i.e.^ the
regions to the west of China, plays an important part in her

98 CHINESE REI/IGION

history of the period. And Central Asia is also the connect-
ing link between India and China. Wu. Ti formed an
alliance with the Yueh Chi or Indo-Scythians against the
common enemy, the Huns. Later, to quote Gowen, "the
great generals carried the arms of China into Western Asia,:
caused the banners of Eastern Empire to meet the banners
of Rome on the shores of the Caspian, and made a way for
the merchants of China to carry their silk and iron into the
markets of Europe.' '

The following is from Parker's China: "A great
revolution in thought took place about two centuries before
our era ; the time coincides with the conquests of the
Parthians, and it is possible that Grseko-Roman civilisation
was affected by the same wave that influenced China — what-
ever it was. At all events, there was a general movement
and a simultaneous expansion in the world all the way from
Rome to Corea. The result was that China now first heard
of India, Buddhism, and the Parthians."

Eitel's Buddhism also may be quoted ; " Chinese armies
had been fighting a series of campaigns in Central Asia
and had repeatedly come into contact with Buddhism
established there. Repeatedly it happened that Chinese
generals, engaged in that war, had occasion to refer, in their
reports to the throne, to the influence of Buddhism.

Laurence Binyon in his Paittting in the Far East
speaks of the same foreign intercourse in the following
terms :

"In B.C. 200 the Chinese seeking markets for their
silk opened communication with Western Asia. A century
later the Emperor Wu Ti sent a mission to the same

CENTRAL ASIA AND CHINA 99

regions. Greek designs appear on the earliest nietal
mirrors of China. It is possible that in the Chinese fable
of the Paradise of the West the myths of the. Greeks may be
reflected."

The whole epoch beginning with Alexander's accession
to the Greek throne and extending for at least three centuries
may be presumed to have been one in which race-boundaries
were being obliterated, cultural angularities were being
rounded off, people's intellectual horizon was being enlarged,
and the sense of universal humanity generated. It was a
time when the Aristotelians, Platonists, ' 'Cynics" and Stoics
were likely to meet the Apocalyptists, Zoroastrians, Con-
fucianists, Taoists, Nirvanists and Yogaists on a common
platform, — when the grammarians and logicians of Alexan-
dria were probably comparing notes with the Pdninians and
Darsanists of India, when the herbalists of Asia Minor could
hold debates with the Charakan Ayurvedists of Hindusthan,
when, in one word, culture was being developed not from
national angles but from one international view-point and
placed as far as possible on a universal basis. The courses
of instruction offered at the great Universities of the world,
e.g. , those at Honanfu, Taxila, and Pataliputra, the Alexand-
rias, and Athens, comprehended the whole encyclopaedia of
arts and sciences known to both Asia and Europe.

The literati, bhikshus, magi and sany&sins of the Kast
met the mystics, sophists, gnostics and peripatetics of the
West at out-of-the-way inns or caravanserais or at the re-
cognised academies and seats of learning. 'Universal-Races-
Congresses' and International Conferences of Scientists may
have been matters of course, and every man who was of any
importance — Hindu, Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, Greek—

100 CHINESE RELIGION

was necessarily a student of world-culture and a citizen of the
world. This intellectual expansion influenced the social
systems also in every part of the civilised world. Inter-
racial marriages may be believed to have been things of
common occurrence, and everywhere there was a rapproche-
ment in ideals of life and thought. The world was fast
approaching a common consciousness, a common conscience
and a common standard of civilisation,

A picture of this fusion of cultures though for a
subsequent period is given by Laurence Binyon in his
chapter on Early Art Traditions in Asia :

' ' What then do we find in this little, remote kingdom
in the heart of Asia ? We find sculpture and paintings,
we find heaps of letters on tablets of wood; odds and ends of
woven stuffs and furniture ; and police notices on strips of
bamboo. * * * The police notices are in Chinese.
The letters are written in a form of Sanskrit. But the string
with which the wooden tablets are tied is sealed with a clay
seal ; and in most cases the seal is a Greek seal, the image
of an Athena or a Heracles. Here, then, we touch three
great civilisations at once : India, Greece, China. * * *

If we ask ourselves what affinities these paintings
reveal, with what art we can connect them, * * * we
are reminded of features in Indian, Persian, Chinese and
Japanese Painting. * * *

Will the sculptures tell us more? They at once re-
mind us of other sculpture. * * * "We see what seems
a Greek Apollo ; and then little by little the Greek feat-
ures become more Indian ; Apollo transforms himself
into a Buddha."

PHYSICAL AND POSITIVE SCIENCES 101

The marriage of Asia with Europe — that meeting of
"the twain" which is never to be — was thus an accomplished
fact in every department of human culture at least 2200
3'ears ago !

Section 3.

General Culture

(«) Physical and Positive Sciences

The intellectual turmoil of the period, in which there
was no monopoly of any one system of thought, is thus
described by Hirth in his Ancient History of China: "That
unsteadiness characteristic of political life in the fourth
century B.C., which knew of no equilibrium among the
contesting powers and which caused even conservative
minds to become accustomed to the most unexpected changes
in politics, was coupled with a hitherto unprecedented
freedom of thought in the ranks of thinkers and writers.
The most heretical views on state and private life were
advanced and gained public adherence."

According to the "Complete Edition of the Philosophers
that lived prior to the Tsin Dynasty ' ' compiled during the
Ming Dynasty about A. D. 1600, "the minor philosophers
are divided into Confucianists, Taoists, writers on govern-
ment, Mihists (adherents of Moti, the philosopher of
universal love) , criss-cross philosophers, i.e. , those who teach
the dialectic art of defending opposite views in politics, and
miscellaneous celebrities."

These accounts should make one cautious about trying
to sum up the whole age by any convenient term. Among
the master-minds of the age, Hirth mentions the pessimist
Yang Chu " one of the most original thinkers China has

102 CHINESE RELIGION

produced, ' ' Moti, "whose teachings are diametrically opposed
to those of Yang Chu," who, besides, represents the Zeitgeist
in his "revolutionary independence of old Chinese tradition,"
Mencius, who upholds the teachings of Confucius against
the upstarts and expands them by applying them to
economic and political problems, and Chuangtzi, the great-
est mystic exponent of Taoism and arch-enemy of the
Confucianists.

Mr. Giles observes in his Chuangtzi^ Mystic^ Moralist
and Social Reformer: ' ' Against these hard and worldly
utterances, Chuangtzi raised a powerful cry. The idealism
of Laotsze had seized upon his poetic soul, and he deter-
mined to stem the tide of materialism in which men were
being fast rolled to perdition. ' '

The literary activity of India also during this period
shows a remarkable versatility. It was not an epoch of
mere prose, if there was ever any exclusively prosaic age in
India, nor was it one in which cold philosophical intellectual-
ism prevailed. Neither did it produce solely the so-called
religious literature — nor was it swamped by the publications
of Sakyasimhan moral tracts. The literature of the age
was a perfect mirror of its many-sided enterprise and ex-
hibited the eclecticism and comprehensiveness of its social
milieu.

In the Kamasutrd^ a Sanskrit work on Brotics by Batsa-
yana of the second century B.C., there is an enumeration of
32 vidyas or sciences and 64 kalds or practical arts known to
the Hindus. It need hardly be said that during the period
we have been considering all these were pursued. The 32
branches of learning are enumerated below :

PHYSICAI/ AND POSITIVE SCIENCES 103

1. Vedas .... ....') .... ... 4

2. Upa- vedas (science of life, archery, music and

science of divination, totetnism, sorcery,
etc.). 4

5. Vedangas (Phonetics, Philology, Rituals,

Etymology, Astronomy and Prosody) .... 6

4. Darsanas (Systems of Philosophy) 6

5. Itihasa (History) 1

6. Purdna, dealing with cosmogony, history of the

ruling dynasties, etc. .... ... .... 1

7. Smriti (Socio-legal, Socio-economic and Socio-

religious treatises) .... .... .... .... 1

8. Scepticism ("Rationalism which advocates

the origin of all things from Nature [not
from God] and repudiates the authority
of the Vedas") 1

9. Arthasastra (Economics arid Politics) ... 1

10. Kama Sastra ("which describes the marks

of living beings both male and female,
e.g. , of men according to their physical
character, and of women according to
external and internal characteristics) .... 1

11. Silpa Sastra ("which treats of the construc-

tion of palaces, images, parks, houses,

canals and other works") .... .... .... 1

12. Alankara (Rhetoric) 1

13. Kavya (Poetry) .... 1

14. Deshabhasha (vernacular language) .... .... 1

15. Avasarokti ("which teaches the proper use of

words at the proper time") .... ... 1

104 CHINESE RELIGION

16. Yavana philosophy ("foreign" systems of
thought, "which recognise God as the
invisible creator of this universe, and
recognise virtue and vice without reference
to the Vedas and post-Vedic classics, and
which believe that the Vedas embody a
separate religious system. ") .... .... 1

The above list gives a schedule of the courses of
instruction offered at the Imperial Universities of India in
those days. It need be remarked that the botany, zoology,
physiology, chemistry, mathematics, astronomy, etc., of the
Hindus of the pre-Christian era compare favourably with the
researches of Theophrastus and his fellow- Aristotelians and
the Alexandrian investigators. The physical sciences of
the Hindus were not surpassed by the Buropean scientists of
even a very late age, e.g. Vesalius, Stahl, Brunfels, etc..
The contributions of the ancient and mediaeval Hindus
to physical science must be a fascinating subject to students
of the history of world-culture. Learned monographs on the
subject have been issued by Professors Roy and Seal of
Calcutta.

Along with the physical sciences in which medicine
and chemistry occupied the lion's share, the scholars of
India certainly continued the compilation, editing and
annotation of the philological and philosophical classics.
The workers in all these fields of investigation were
Brahmanical, Jaina as well as Sakyan, and the seats of learn-
ing were the Pariskats, academies, monasteries or viharas.
The chemists, physiologists, logicians and grammarians
came from all sects.

At least three special classes of moral and theological
literature must have necessarily grown up to cater for the

PHYSICAL AND POSITIVE SCIENCES 105

needs of the people following the three prominent systems of
metaphysics. It is said that the Jaina Canon was fixed at
Pataliputra by a council of monks convened by Sthulabhadra
early in the 3rd century B.C..

Mrs. Stevenson remarks: "The council fixed the
canon of the Jaina Sacred literature, consisting of the eleven
Anga and the fourteen Parva. It seems likely that the
books were not committed to writing at this time, but were
still preserved in the memories of the monks. The action
of the council would thus be limited to settling what treatises
were authoritative."

The dialect used by the Jainas for their sacred texts
was Prakrit, the language spoken by Mahavira and his
monks. Sanskrit came to be in vogue later. So also
during this period the Sakyasimhans used for their sacred
writings the Pali dialect, very much allied to the Jaina.
But Sanskrit was the language adopted by those who
founded Buddhism or the Buddha-cult in subsequent
times.

The following verses on the Duty of Kings are trans-
lated by GriflS.th from Mann's Laws, a Sanskrit work
popular during the period under review :

' ' He that ruleth should endeavour with his might and
main to be

Like the Powers of God around him, in his strength
and majesty :

Like the Rain-God in due season sendeth showers from
above.

He should shed upon his kingdom equal favour, gra-
cious love ;

106 CHINESE RBI/IGION

As the sun draws up the water with his fiery rays of

might,
Thus let him from his own kingdom claim his revenue

and right ;
As the mighty wind unhinder'd bloweth freely where

he will,
Let the monarch, ever present with his spies all places

fiil;_

Like as in the judgment Yama punisheth both friends

and foes,
Let him judge and punish duly rebels who his might

oppose.
As the moon 's unclouded rising bringeth peace and

calm delight.
Let his gracious presence ever gladden all his people's

sight ;
Let the king consume the wicked — burn the guilty in

his ire,
Bright in glory, fierce in anger, like the mighty God

of Fire,
As the General Mother feedeth all to whom she giveth

birth,
Let the king support his subjects, like the kindly

fostering Earth. "
These lines describe the divine attributes that the king
possesses, for the king, according to statesmen of Manu-cycle
is a "great god in human form." The Chinese and Shinto
conceptions of the king being ' a son of Heaven ' have their
counterpart in Hindu tradition as well.

{b) Metaphysical Thought

We find in Confucianism and its Rivals: "One point
specially to be noticed is the persistence, even where
cobwebs of mysticism hang most thickly, of the old ideas of
a personal if not anthropomorphic god."

METAPHYSICAL THOUGHT 107

The ideas of Chwangtsze, the most brilliant Taoist, the
contemporary of Mencius, are thus described by Suzuki :
"When we come to .Chuangtsze the world of relativity was
felt like a big pen ; he left it behind him in his ascent to the
realm of the Infinite, and there he wished to sleep an
absolutely quiescent dreamless sleep. This was his ideal.
He was, therefore, more radical than Laotsze in his tran-
scendental idealism."

Chinese mentality approaches the Hindu so much that
Gowen is led to temark about this transcendentalist : ' ' He
plainly reflects in his writings, which have much charm, an
Indian influence, as in the closing lines of his poem on
Peaceful Old Age :

' ' Thus strong in faith I wait and long to be

One with the pulsings of Eternity. ' '

This " Eternity " of Chuangtsze is thus described in
Giles' Confucianism : ' ' We are sometimes confronted with
a psychological unity instead of a concrete personality.
With Chuang-tsze all things are one, and that One is God,
in whose obliterating unity we are embraced. * * *
Therefore, we are advised to take no heed of time, nor of
right and wrong, but passing into the realm of the Infinite,
i.e. of God, to take our final rest therein. Contraries, he
explains, cannot but exist, but they should exist independ-
ently of each other, without antagonism. Such a condition
is found only in the all-embracing unity of God ; in other
words, of the Infinite Absolute."

The Tao-te-ching, the most famous mystical work of
this period, may be regarded as a Chinese Gita. The
following Chinese sayings could be illustrated by parallel
passages from Sanskrit :

108 CHINESE RELIGION

1. Keep behind and you shall be in front. Keep out
and you shall be kept in.

2. Mighty is he who conquers himself.

3. Do nothing, and all things will be done. I do
nothing, and my people become good of their own accord.

4. He who is content has enough.

5. He who is conscious of being strong is content to
be weak.

Such Taoistic mysticism was imported to England by
Carlyle from German Transcendentalists with the celebrated
preamble: "Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe." His
advice, "Make thy numerator zero, and the quotient will
be infinite," is Taoism !

The following^ declaration of ChuangtSe about the
method of finding the ' 'real nature of things" could be
equally made by a contemporary Hindu: ' 'Be free yourself
from subjective ignorance and individual peculiarities, find
the universal Tao in your own being, and you will be able
to find it in others, too, because the Tao cannot be one in
one thing and another in another. The Tao must be the
same in every existence, because 'I' and the ' ten thousand
beings' grow from the selfsame source, and in this oneness
of things we can bury all our opinions and contradictions."

Taoism of the period under discussion has such
remarkable features in its doctrine, that, as says Suzuki, "a
foreign origin has been suspected, which claim satisfactorily
solves the question of its striking resemblance to Hindu
philosophy. They even go so far as to suggest the Brahmin
descendency of the Yellow Bmperor Laotsze and other
unknown Taoist thinkers."

METAPHYSICAL THOUGHT 109

In any case it is clear that both in India and China
the environments were getting closer and closer to each
other.

The Tao-te-ching supposed to contain the sayings of
Laotsze is generally believed by sinologues to be a compila-
tion of the second century B. C. . The Celestials of that age
could therefore easily interpolate the Hindu Git6b in their
literature. The following verses translated from Sanskrit
by Griffith Avould be at once recognised as Taoist'ic :

"Mourn not for them, O Arjun! for the Wise

Grieve for none living, weep for none that dies;

Nor thou, nor yonder princes were not.

For ever have they been, though changed their lot,

So shall their being through all time extend.

Without beginning, and without an end.

The vital spirit in this mortal clay

Lives on through youth, from childhood to decay;

And then new forms the fleeting souls receive —

Why for these changes should the hero grieve?

Know that what is can never cease to be,

What is not can be never — they who see

The mystic Truth, the Wise, alone can tell

The nature of the things they study well.

And be thou sure the mighty boundless soul,

The Eternal Essence, that pervades this whole,

Can never perish — never waste away.

The Indestructible knows not decay.

PVail though its shrine, undimm'd it lasts for ever,

The bodies perish — That can perish never;

Up then, and conquer! in thy might arise!

Fear not to slay it, for it never dies."

110 CHINESE RELIGION

Thus the most highly mystical syllogism is led up to
the most practical climax — ^^that of slaying the enemies.
This is the "Natural Supematuralism" of Carlyle crystal-
lised in the formula: "Always do the Duty that lies nearest
thee." It may be remarked, by the bye, that the whole Giid^
known to be the abstrusest and most other-worldly treatise
in Hindu literature, was delivered by the Lord Himself on
the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the greatest Armageddon
conceived in world's literature. This certainly is Positivism
and Secularism with vengeance.

{c) Idealism and Supernaturalism in Literature

Literature of the age (Tsin and Han) bears evidence
of the idealistic tendency of the Chinese mind. According
to Giles' History of Chinese Literature, ^ ' the ])oetry
which is representative of the period between the death of
Confucius and the second century B.C. is a thing apart.
There is nothing like it in the whole range of Chinese
literature. * * * Poetry has been defined by the Chinese
as 'emotion expressed in words.' * * * Poetry, they
say, knows no law. And again, * the men of old reckoned
it the highest excellence in poetry that the meaning should
lie beyond the words.' "

Mr. Werner quotes the following from the Journal of
the Peking Oriental Society from which it would appear that
the Confucian age of prose was followed by an era of
romanticism: "The Confucian age produced no poetry
brilliant enough to be preserved. * * * The literati
did not encourage it. * * *

From B.C. 312 onward much poetry was written and an
unbroken succession of poets maintained a position of

IDEAIvISM AND SUPERNATURALISM IN LITERATURE 111

influence in the literary firmament. * * * Cliu Yuan

* * took pleasure in adding Taoist ideas which then
prevailed in that part of China where he lived. ' '

Further, ' ' the mythology and supernaturalism of the
times after Confucius were a powerful factor in originating
the school of poetry which Chu Yuan and his fellow poets
of the third century B.C. united to establish. It operated
on their minds as it did on the minds of Chuantszi in prose.

* * '^ Our poet gave himself up to be under the control
of legend and fancy, and at the same time, was swayed by
the most sincere and deeply laid loyalty and love of country.
His fondness for vigorous conceptions, the rapidity of his
transitions, his luxuriant imagery, the evident pleasure felt
by him in personification of the elements, the agreeable bal-
ance of his sentences, the impetuosity of his style, and the
richness of his vocabulary are features that command our
literary admiration, while his depth of sincerity and
patriotic eagerness ensure our moral sympathy."

The following lines of Chu Yuan on 'the land of exile'
in his Lz Sao ("Falling into Trouble") are quoted from
Cranmer-Byng' s Luie of Jade :

"Methinks there's a genius roams in the mountains,
Girdled with ivy. and robed in wisteria.
Lips ever smiling, of noble demeanour,
Driving the yellow pard, tiger-attended,
Couched in a chariot with banners of cassia.
Cloaked with the orchid, and crowned with azaleas;
Culling the perfume of sweet flow6rs, he leaves
In the heart a dream-blossom, memory-haunting.
But dark is the forest where now is my dwelling,
Never the light of day reaches its shadow.

112 CHINESE REI/IGION

Thither a perilous pathway meanders.
Lonely I stand on the lonelier hill top,
Cloudland beneath me, and clondland around me.
Softly the wind bloweth, softly the rain falls,
Joy like a mist blots the thought of my home out ;
There none would honour me, fallen from honours.
I gather the larkspur over the hillside,
Blown mid the chaos of boulder and bell-bine;
Hating the tyrant who made me an outcast,
Who of his leisure now spares me no moment :
Drinking the mountain spring, shading at noon day
Under the cypress my limbs from the sun glare.
What though he summon me back to his palace,
I cannot fall to the level of princes.
Now rolls the thunder deep, down the cloud valley,
And the gibbons around me howl in the long night.
The gale through the moaning trees fitfully rushes.
Lonely and sleepless I think of my thankless
Master, and vainly would cradle my sorrow."

Thus, neither in Confucius' time nor since has China
been only Confucius ' writ large. ' To understand the
Chinese people of any age we must not allow ourselves to be
possessed by Confucian pedants.

It is unfortunate that we have very few fragments of
earliest Jain a literature, but specimens of earliest Pali litera-
ture are copious. Some of these may be regarded as the
common storehouse of ballads, legends, sayings, and myths
out of which Buddhist, Jaina, Vaishnava, and Shaiva
epics, dramas and story-books were built up. The following
remark of Rhys Davids opens up the Maurya age before our
minds' eye very vividly: "It is interesting to notice

IDEALISM AND SUPERNATURAUSM IN lylTERATURE 113

that, just as we have evidence at this period of first steps
having been taken towards a future epic, so we have evidence
of the first steps towards a future drama — the production
before a tribal concourse on fixed feast-days of shows with
scenery, music and dancing. There is ample evidence in
the Buddhist and Jaina record, and in Asokan inscriptions,
of the existence of these Samajjas^ as they were called, as a
regular institution : ' '

During this period Sanskrit, however, was not neglected.
It remained the language of scholarship and of the traditional
Brahmanists and Upanishadists and was destined to be the
language of the adherents of the two new orders also. In
the meanwhile it became the vehicle of high class poetry,
which, according to the Hindus, is "impassioned speech"
{JCavyam rasatmakam vdkyam). This Wordsworthian idea
is shared with them by the Chinese.

The following verses about the birth of Rama illustrate
the influence that the supernatural was exerting on the
people's mind at the time. The translator is Griffith.

' ' With costly sacrifice, with praise and prayer,

Ayodhya's King had claimed from Heaven an heir ;

When from the shrine, where burnt the holy flame,

Scaring the priests, a glorious angel came.

With arms that trembled as they scarce could hold

A flood of nectar in a vase of gold :

A weight too vast for even him to bear,

For Vishnu's self, the first of Gods was there.

With reverent awe the Lord of Kosal's land

Received the rectar from the angel's hand.

As erst Lord Indra from a milky wave

Took the sweet drink that troubled ocean gave.

114 CHINESE REWGION

Soon as the queens had shared that mystic bowl,
Hope, sure and steadfast, filled each lady's soul.
They saw, in dreams, a glorious host who kept
Their watch around them, as they sweetly slept.

=i= * *

Proud waxed the monarch, as each happy queen
Told the bright visions that her eyes had seen :

* * ^

As many a river lends its silver breast
Where the calm image of the moon may rest,
So in the bosom of each lady lay
That God, divided, who is one for aye.

^K ^ ^

The babes were born : then sin and sorrow fled.
And joy and virtue reigned supreme instead.
For Vishnu's self disdained not mortal birth.
And heaven came with him as he came to earth.
Once more the regions, where each guardian lord
Had quailed before the giant he abhorred.
Were cheered with breezes pure from dust and stain.
And freed from terror hailed a gentler reign.
The fire was dimmed by cloudy smoke no more.
And the sun shone untroubled as before."

Students of Biblical literature would notice in these old
Hindu verses the Messianic conception that was crystallising
itself about the first century B.C. into a definite shape in
the Psalms of Solomon (XVH. 23-25):

" Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them

Their King, the son of David,
At the time in which thou seest O God,

That he may reign over Israel Thy servant.

IDEALISM AND SUPERNATURAt,ISM IN LITERATURE! 115

And gird him with strength that he may

Shatter unrighteous rulers,
And that he may purge Jerusalem from

Nations that trample her down to destruction. "

The rhapsodists of the V^lmikian cycle sang verses
like these to millions of men and women, teaching them the
doctrine of Avatara (human incarnation of Divinity) and
reciting the story of the advent of the Messiah. During
these very times the poets and monks of the Sakyasimhan
order were building up the materials for similar Messiah-
legends about the great teacher of the sixth century B.C..
Sikyaites and R^maites represent the same Indian men-
tality from slightly different angles. The Hindu sculptures
of the period, e.g.^ those at Bharhut, tell the same tale ; for
in these we find scenes from the Sanskrit Ramayana forming
motives, decorative as well as didactic, together with the
legends described in the Pali Jdtakas. We see both in
literature and art how the historical Sakya and the semi-
historical Rama were simultaneously getting deified in
people's imagination. The same emotionalism and roman-
ticism were at work in both.

CHAPTER V.

The God-lore of China and India under the

First Emperors

(B.C. 350-100)

Section 1.

Progress in Hagiology and Mythology.

{a) Invention of New Deities

We have noticed the continuity and growth of the pre-
Confucian Cult of World-Forces in Confucius' time. The
development continues along the same lines after Confucius
too. During the latter half of the Chou Period and the
succeeding epoch of Imperialism we can observe the progress
of this pluralistic godlore.

According to La Couperie, "there was a remarkable
dualist worship established in Tcheng in B.C. 524' to
Hwei-luh^ god of light and fire, and Hiuen Ming, god of
darkness and water, then known in Chinese Mythology for
the first time. * =k * jt -vvas the custom at Yeh in the-
state of Wei in Honan to give a wife to the river-god,
Hopeh, annually by throwing a girl into the river. It was
suppressed during the reign of Marquis Wen of Wei, B.C.
424-387. * * * It was the custom in the state of Lu, at
the above date, in time of drought, to leave a person exposed
to the sun, to die of thirst and hunger. * * *

The -worship of the fire-goddess Hwei-luh was adopted
by the Bmperor in B.C. 133 and afterwards became that of
the kitchen-god."

inve;ntion of ne;w deities 117

Mr. Werner quotes the China Review (XII. 417) from
whicli it is apparent that the worship of the five emperors
"was not completed till the Han Dynasty, the second
century before Christ." "The worship of the five em-
perors was still more developed in the Tsin and Han
Dynasties. "

The God of Literature (Wen Ti) was, like the God of
War, "called into being by an Imperial Mandate," as the
writer in the North China Branch of Royal Asiatic Society's
Journal (vi. 31-3) remarks.

The First Emperor perpetrated vandalism on the Con-
fucian Classics and the literati, but he was himself a great
patron of the orthodox religion which they represented.
For he was the innovator of the worship of Mt. Tai
in Shantung, which is now a part of the popular faith.
Mt. Tai has since then been the most important of
the five sacred mountains of China. As Giles observes,
"it is, in fact, a divinity manifesting itself from time
to time under human form. * * * fhe chief favours
sought from the mountain were (1) rain and fine weather
in due season, in order to produce abundant crops for
the farmer, and food for the people at large; (2) protection
from earthquakes, thunder-storms and such dangers as were
supposed to be connected with the appearance of comets,
eclipses and other natural phenomena."

The worship of Mother Earth as a deity is also described
by Giles in this connexion : ' 'The soil with its apparent
powers of yielding or withholding its vegetable products,
became a god — a fifth among the cluster of family-deities,
the gods of the kitchen-stove, of the well, of the front door,
and of the parlour. ' '

118 CHINESE REI/IGION

In India, also, during this period, the people were
inventing new deities exactly like the Chinese.

The following verses, in Waterfield's translation, de-
scribe how the new god Shiva compelled recognition from
those who had been used to the earliest Vedic deities :

Daksha for devotion made a mighty feast ;

Milk and curds and butter, flesh of bird and beast.

Rice and spice and honey, sweetmeat, ghee and gur,

Gifts for all the Brahmans, food for all the poor.

At the gates of Ganga Daksha held his feast ;

Called the gods unto it, greatest as the least.

All the gods were gathered round with one accord.

All the gods but Uma, all but Uma's lord.

Uma sat with Shiva on KailSsa hill ;

Round them stood the Rudras watching for their will.

^ ;{: 5jS

Wroth of heart was Uma ; to her lord she spake : —

"Why dost thou, the mighty, of no rite partake?

Straight I speed to Daksha such a sight to see :

If he be my father, he must welcome thee. "
^ ^ ^

Spake the Muni Daksha, stern and cold his tone : —
" Welcome thou, too, daughter, since thou com'st alone.
But thy frenzied husband suits another shrine ;

He is no partaker of this feast of mine."

^ ^ ?K

Words like these from Daksha, Daksha's daughter

heard ;
Then a sudden passion all her bosom stirred :
Byes with fury flashing, speechless in her ire.
Headlong did she hurl her 'mid the holy fire.

INVENTION OF NEW DEITIES 119

Hushed were hymns and chanting ; priests were mocked
and sptirned ;

Food defiled and scattered ; altars overturned.

* * *

Prostrate on the pavement Daksha fell dismayed: —
" Mightiest, thou hast conquered ; thee we ask for aid."

>K 5{c ^

Bright the broken altars shone Avith Shiva's form ;
" Be it so !" His blessing soothed that frantic storm.

— Indian imagination thus brought to the forefront a
new god who had been in the background in Vedic, post-
Vedic and Sakyasimhan times. The worship of Shiva in
the form of lingani (phallus) is taken as a matter of course
in the Mahabharata. Fundamentally the worshippers of
world-forces, the Hindus like the Chinese can manufacture
a god every ten years.

The Hindus of the Maurya and post-Maurya epoch
had other things to do besides the creation of gods and
goddesses. And when they did care for the creation of
gods and goddesses they were not exclusively bent upon
elaborating the traditions of the Sakyasimhan cycle. We
have noticed how in Sakyasimha's time the old Nature-
deities had been getting definite shapes and were being
transformed into more or less new divinities. Some of
these have been mentioned and described with illustration
in Grunwedel's Buddhist Art in India. The process went
on during the post-Sakyan era also and gave rise to all
the gods and goddesses known to us in the Ramdyana^
Mahabharata and some of the Purdnas. Rama-cult, Krish-
na-cult, Vishnu-cult and Shiva-cult, in fact, all the
cults and all the mythologies which were to have powerful
influence on Indian character in subsequent times may

120 CHINESE RELIGION

be said to have formed themselves during this period. It is
difficult to trace the successive stages in the Hindu mytho-
logies as it is difficult to fix a date for every Chinese god.
But it may be asserted with tolerable certainty that the
epoch of the Mauryas and their successors was the formative
period of the later Buddhist, Brahmanic and Jaina saint-
lores and godlores. So that towards the end of the first cen-
tury B.C. and the beginning of the first century A.D. , we
witness the emergence of Shaivaism, Buddhism, Vishnuism,
Jainism, etc., as more or less full-fledged religious systems
with all the paraphernalias of ritualism known to mediseval
and modern Hindus.

(5) Simultaneous Development of diverse
god-lores.

It is superfluous to observe that the folk-ideas about
animals, trees, fetishes, etc., continue to develop along the
usual lines as in previous centuries. Changes in myths
and superstitions, whether they be regarded as animistic or
taoistic or primitive, must not be ignored in any account of
Chinese Religion during this period.

The "Calendrical mode of life" goes on as ever. "The
propitious days are named on which to contract marriages
or remove to another house or cut clothes : days on which
one may begin works of repair of houses, temples, ships or
commence house building by laying the upper beam of the
roof in its place by means of a scaffolding, or putting up the
first pillar ; days on which one may safely undertake earth
works, bathe, open shops, have meetings with relations, and
friends, receive money; days on which one may sow or reap,
send one's children to school for the first time, bury the dead,
etc." (DeGroot).

DIVERSE GOD-LORES 121

The following account of the first Emperor's Taoistic
leanings from Gowen's Outline History is a good picture of
the prevailing eclecticism in Chinese Society : ' ' During
the Tsin dynasty the Emperor was wojit to expound Taoism
to his courtiers and caused those who yawned to be executed.
Tsin Shih Hwang Ti, the ' Burner of the Books' was an
ardent Taoist and sent a famous expedition to Japan in
search of the Elixir Vitcs. ' ' And the facts that the first
sovereign of the Han dynasty was also much devoted to
Taoism and the hierarchy of Taoist Popes dates from about
this time, point inevitably to the conclusion that the Chinese
mind was as elastic as ever in socio-religious beliefs inas-
much as it never recognised the monopoly of any.

The following extract from De Groot's Religion in
China is another illustration of the tendencies of the time:

"As early as the time of the Han Dynasty, Taoism
had grown to be an actual religion with a pantheon with
doctrines of sanctity, with ethics calculated to teach sanctity,
with votaries, hermits and saints, teachers and pupils."
About the Han Emperor Wuti (B.C. 140-87), whose long
reign of fifty-four years was one of the most splendid in the
whole history of China, Gowen remarks : ' ' He did much
to promote the study of the re-discovered Confucian classics,
* * * displayed in his later life a great devotion to the
superstitious and magical rites of Taoism and is said to have
been the author of the so-called 'Dew-receiving vase' in the
belief that the drinking of the dew thus collected would
secure immortality.' '

Thus Confucius and Laotsze flourish side by side. It is
impossible to make a bipartite or tripartite division of
Chinese mentality and study each separately. I^ikewise it

122 CHINESE RELIGION

is misleading to represent Hindu religious consciousness as
divided into water-tight compartments, e.g. , of Vaishnavism,
Shaivaism, Jainism and Buddhism.

The following history of Jainism given by Stevenson is
typical of every Indian ism : "As the Jaina laity had been
drawn away from Hinduism by their adhesion to Mahavira,
they were left without any stated worship. Gradually, how-
ever, reverence for their master and for other teachers,
historical and mythical, passed into the adoration and took
the form of a regular cult. Finally, images of these adored
personages were set up for worship, and idolatry became one
of the chief institutions of orthodox Jainism. The process
was precisely parallel to what happened in Buddhism. It
is not known when idols were introduced, but it was prob-
ably in the second or first centurj' B.C.."

The simultaneous growth of Taoism and so-called
Confucianism during Tsin-Han period is paralleled by
simultaneous growth of all the isms in contemporary India :

"The third and second centuries B.C., must have been
a period of great activity amongst the Jaina. Under Asoka
the religion is said to have been introduced into Kashmir.
Under Suhastin, the great ecclesiastical head of the order in
the second century, Jainism received many marks of approba-
tion from Samprati, grandson of Asoka. Inscriptions show
that it was already very powerful in Orissa in the second
century and in Mathura in the northwest in the first
century B.C. ."

It is interesting to note that the Brahmanist Chandra-
gupta, the first Emperor of India, is claimed by the Jainas as
an adherent of their faith, exactly as the first Chinese
Kmperor was a patron of both the cults of his time. Again

DIVERSE GOD-LORES 123

in the 3rd century B.C., there is reported to have been a
Council of Jainas held to fix their Canon. Sakyasimhans
also are credited with having had a Council of their own
about the same time.

The parallel development of Jainism, Buddhism and
other Indian isms can be lost sight of only to misunderstand
the Avorking of the forces that made the actual life of the
Hindus in the pre-Christian era. In their zeal to prove an
ascendency of Buddhism during certain ages of Indian his-
tory, some scholars have minimised the actual position and
importance of the Vedic and Brahmanic rites. They have
also totally ignored the existence of other powerful cults, e.g. ,
Jainism, and the faith of the ' 'folk" which has been the parent
of all new-fangled ideas in every epoch. For the culture of
Hindusthan has been the making, not of the princes and
rulers alone, nor of the scholars, philosophers, moralists,
priests, bhtkshus, or monks alone, but of the people and the
lower orders as well. The 'folk-element' in Hindu civilisa-
tion has yet to be studied. The more it is studied the more
would it be clear that the origin and development of Indian
religious systems owes a great deal to the imagination and
inventiveness of the dumb millions. This can be safd equally
about the folk-element in Chinese cu.lture as well as Japanese.

However, the following remarks of Mrs. Stevenson give
an idea of the common fund of convention out of which all
the founders of Indian religions have drawn, and explain
why it is so important not to dogmatise about any age as
being dominated by a certain ism: "The lack of knowl-
edge on the part of early scholars which accredited all
Stupa and all cave-temples to Buddhists, robbed Jainism for
a time of its earliest surviving monuments. It is only
recently, only in fact since students of the past have realised

124 CHINESE REIvIGION

how man}' symbols, such as the wheel, the rail, the rosary,
the svasitka, etc., the Jaina had in common with the
Buddhists and Brahmanas that its early sites and shrines
have been handed back to Jainism. * * * Jaina and
Buddhist art must have followed much the same course, and
the former like the latter erected stupa with railings round
them in which to place the bones of their saints. But such
has been the avidity with which everything possible has
been claimed as Buddhist that as yet only two stupas are
positively admitted to be of Jaina origin."

Asoka had been harsh to the Brahmanical sacrificers as
Shi Hwangti was to the Confucian literati but neither could
and did extirpate them. So the old cult of the World- Forces
was not dead during their rule. In fact a vehement pro-
Brahmanic and anti-Asokan propaganda began about B.C.
184, when the last of the Maury as was put to death by a
popular general Pushyamitra. It was signalised by the
Aswamedha or horse-sacrifice. The religion of sacrifices
and Nature-deities thus ran smooth both in China and India.

(f) Deification oe Men as Avataras

Meanwhile Confucius and Laotsze the rivals in
lifetime begin to wax prominent in the pious thoughts of
their adherents and admirers. They become first saints or
sages, then gods. It is difi&cult to trace the whole process
of heroification and deification. But evidences of Chinese
imagination gradually constructing out of these two his-
toric personalities 'things that never were on sea or land' are
not wanting.

Ssu-ma Chien the historian, who lived in the second and
first centuries B.C., thus records his opinion about
Confucius. ' ' Countless are the princes and prophets that

DEIFICATION OF MEN AS AVATArAS 125

the world has seen in its time ; glorious in life, forgotten in
death. Bnt Confucius * * * remains among us after
many generations. He is the model for such as would be
wise. By all, from the son of Heaven down to the meanest
student, the supremacy of his principle is fully and freely
admitted. He may indeed be pronounced the divinest of
men. ' ' Even in this ecstatic eulogy Confucius is not yet a
god, but only a 'hero, ' to use Carlyle's language, or the more
recent 'Super-man.' But he will soon have a shrine, then
a temple, and be adopted into the pantheon of Shangti.

The same historian mentions the following about
Laotsze' s adherents : ' ' Those who attach themselves to
the doctrine of Lao-tsze condemn that of the literati^ and
the literati on their part condemn Lao-tsze. ' ' On this Dr.
Legge remarks in The Religions of China : "The students
of the Tao had * * become a school distinct from the
adherents of the orthodox Confucianism, and opposed to
and by them. But there is no account of Lao-tsze's deifica-
tion, nothing of his pre-existence.' '

This is, however, the opinion of one who belonged to
the opposite party. In any case we see here both Confucius
and Lao-tsze in that stage at which their godhood is in
what may be called the ' ' period of gestation. ' ' They are
already saints and surely gods-on-probation.

A picture of the thoughts that were moving in the
Chinese mind of the later Chou, Tsin and Han periods
would come up before our mind's eye if we only notice what
is going on among the Hindus of to-day.

To mention only a few names from among the
Indian celebrities who have worked in the field of religion,
morals and social service during the last century. Rama-
mohana and Dayananda are already avataras or incarnations

126 CHINESE RELIGION

of God to their devotees. Devendranatli, the father of the
' knight-poet ' Sir Rabindranath Tagore of GitCmjali fame
is a maharshi^ i.e. a Great Sage; Ram Tirath is, if not any-
thing more, at least a saint. Vivekananda, the Nietzschean
Bnergist, is a demi-god ; and his guru or spiritual preceptor,
Ramkrishna Paramahamsa is nothing short of a god
occupying almost the same rank as Rama, Buddha, Krishna,
etc. And there are hundreds of others who have been
receiving homage as saints, avata^'as^ gods in esse as well
as in posse. They have temples consecrated to them and
are worshipped if not yet in stone-images, at least in oil-
paintings. These have their following not only among the
women and the half-educated masses who in every age and
every clime have contributed to the building up of the
world's hagiology and mythology, but also among Justices
of the High Courts, Barristers of the British Inns, botanists,
engineers, chemists, medical men, journalists, social reform-
ers, political agitators, educationists, theists, monotheists,
and of course, atheists and positivists with their New
Calendars of Great Men.

The doctrine of Avatdra {i.e. the idea of Divinity
embodying itself in human beings to save mankind), which
has been the bedrock of later Indian life and thought, must
have been developed during the Maurya and post-Maurya
epoch. It was utilised by the Vaishnavaites (Krishnaites),
Ramaites and even Sakyaites and Mahavirites. The birth-
stories, called the Jdlakas in Pali language, deal with
the previous births of Sakj'asimha the Buddha; and the
Tirthankara-\&g&-QAs of the Jainas in Prakrit language
deal with their own Messiahs. Both have their future
avatdras too.

DEIFICATION OF MEN AS AVATArAS 127

All these are derived from the same stock of tales about
the past and future saviours of mankind which had been
floating in the atmosphere of India in those days. The
orthodox Brahmanical'version, in Sanskrit language, of these
incarnation-myths is to be seen in that huge encyclopaedia
of Indian beliefs, practices, superstitions, arts, and sciences
known as the Mahabharata and also in some of the Puranas.
It has to be noted also that the great theory of Ytiga^itara
(or Cycles, at the end of which the Divinity incarnates itself
to found a new Zeitgeist) is enunciated in the GUdu^ which
is only a chapter of the encyclopaedic Mahabharata. The
pre-eminence of Krishna in the Gitd, is an aspect of
the Vaishnavite environment noticeable in the multifarious
contents of the huge work.

Neither Sakyasimha nor Mahavira has any place in
the whole Mahabharata literature. But both of them have
been receiving almost the some homage as these gods among
their own adherents.

It need only be added that whatever be the date of
the final form in which we have the Mahabharata^ some
of the stories related in it describe facts and phenomena of
pre-Sakyan ages, and a great portion of the verses must
have been composed during the post-Sakyan, Maurya, post-
Maurya but pre-Christian centuries. The same remark
can be made about the Rama-legends compiled by the
Valmikian bards.

The development of godlore was thus proceeding on the
same lines among the' Celestials and the Hindus. The
two peoples were approaching an identical consumma-
tion. The religious imagination of the Chinese is made of
the same stuff as that of the Indians.

128 CHINESE RELIGION

The types of Perfection or Highest Ideals which were
being evolved both in China and India during the previous
millennium at last began to crystallise themselves out of the
spiritual solution and emerge as distinctly individualised
entities. The Classical World-Forces supplied the basic
foundation of these types or entities. Folk-imagination in
brooding over the past and reconstructing ancient history had
sanctified certain historic personalities, legendary heroes or
eponymous culture-pioneers, and endowed their names with
a halo of romance. Philosophical speculation had been
groping in the dark about the mysteries of the universe and
had stumbled upon the One, the Unknown, the Eternal,
the Infinite. Last, but not least, are the contributions of the
"lover, the lunatic, and the poet " who came to weld together
all these elements into artistic shapes, ' fashioning forth '
those "Sons of God" — concrete human personalities to
embody at once the man-in-God and the God-in-man. In the
Ava^ara/iood oi every suTpermtendent of the Zeitgeist^ ^-g-i
that of a Confucius or a Laotsze, a Rama, or a Krishna or
a Buddha or a Mahavira, the philosophical historian has to
read at once the same ethnic, physical, legendary, mystical
and imaginative factors of the Indo-Chinese world.

Section 2
Images as Symbols
(«) In China
According to De Groot, the Confucianists are idol-
worshippers and Confucianism is " a system of idolatry."
Of course it is too late in the day to repeat that the worship
of idols in China, Japan and India, whether Buddhistic,
Taoistic, Jaina, Vaishnava, Shaiva, or Shakta is not worship
of 'stocks and stones.' As Johnston says in Buddhist

IMAGES IN CHINA 129

China: "In the East as in the West there are many
people who are, or believe themselves to be, incapable of
dispensing with all sfensuous aids to religious imagination,
and who find in otitward signs and emblems a means of
preserving undimmed within their hearts and minds the
light of a lofty spiritual ideal. * * * flie image or
sacred picture is merely a symbol of divinity. * * *

"No sanctity attaches to images and pictures as such,
their sole use is to stimulate the religious imagination and
to engender feelings of veneration for the spiritual reality of
which they are an imperfect expression. * * * ^\x^
image serves its purpose if it helps to bring the human
spirit into communion with the divine, but it is rightly to be
regarded as a means and not as an end."

The so-called Confucian idolatry is thus described by De
Groot : "It represents the gods, even Heaven and Earth, by
wooden tablets inscribed with their titles, and some of them
by images in human form. These objects it holds to be in-
habited by the gods themselves, especially when, as always
occurs at sacrifices, the spirits or shen have been formally
prayed to or summoned with or without music, to descend
and take up their abode therein. ^" * *

Its ritual, based on the Classics, was codified during
the Han dynasty. * * *

The images of gods exist by tens of thousands, the
temples by thousands. Almost every temple has idol gods
which are of co-ordinate or subordinate rank to the chief god.
* * * For the mountains, rocks, stones, streams and
brooks which the people worship, images in human form are
fashioned, to be dedicated to their souls, that these may
dwell therein."

130 CHINESE RELIGION

This can stand as a correct picture of the religious
systems of the folk in Japan and India also.

It would be interesting to know exactly when image-
worship began to occupy a place in Chinese religious
consciousness. There are reasons to believe that like
every other item of socio-religious life, image-worship was
autochthonous in China and not imported from abroad.
The legend of the first image of Buddha being placed
by the king in a temple which already had other images
would indicate this. This was in 121 B.C.

Dr. Legge in his paper on Taoism in The Religions oj
China remarks : " Indeed it was not till after the image of
Buddha was brought to the capital in A.D. 65 that images
or statues of Confucius and other great men of the past
began to be made."

This does not seem to be correct. For images
and representations of deities have been prevalent in
China since 4th century B.C.. Terrien de La Couperie
observes that a name of the Fire-goddess about that
time was ' ' Ki^ which is the tuft or coiffure of a
Chinese lady, the deity was then represented as a beautiful
woman dressed in red. Her worship was recognised
* * * by Kao-tsu, the first emperor of the Han dynasty
in B.C. 204." {Western Origin pp. 160-1 quoted by
Werner) .

Images have existed in China before the Celestials
came into contact with the Hindus.

The personifying and concretising tendency of the
Chinese mind would also be evident from the cosmogony
of the Celestial people described in Chinese Repository
(iii. 55): "The warm influence of the Yang being

IMAGES IN CHINA 131

condensed produced fire ; and the finest parts of fire formed
the sun. The cold exhalations of the Yin^ being likewise
condensed, produced water; and the finest parts of the
watery substance formed the moon. By the seminal influence
of the sun and the moon, came the stars."

The following is taken from Davis' Chinese ii. 67-8:
"The above might, with no great impropriety, be
styled, 'a sexual system of the universe,' They maintain
that when from the union of the Yang and Yin all exist-
ences, both animate and inanimate, had been produced, the
sexual principle was conveyed to, and became inherent in, all
of them. Thus heaven, the sun, day, etc., are considered
of the male gender; earth, the moon, night, etc., of the
female. This notion pervades every department of knowl-
edge in China. "

It requires but a single step to come from this material-
ising tendency to the iconising of the Nature-Energies or
World-Forces. In fact, the images that have been already
formed through poetry, legends, ballads and folk-songs have
only to be transferred to the sculptor and the painter.
Images are images whether expressed through the medium
of sounds as in literary and musical arts, or through that of
sights as in the sister plastic and pictorial arts. The very
moment that a hymn has been sung, and a piece of poetry
composed, the idea has become embodied, the invisible
visible, and ' 'airy nothings have got a local habitation and
a name." Idol-worshipper every man has been, every man
is, and every man will be — so long as man is a speaking
animal.

During the period under review, Confucius had been
slowly extending an empire over the heart of the Celestials.

132 CHINESE REUGION

He was not yet formally deified but there were signs that he
would soon have a place with the gods, as an assistant of
Shang Ti. The process of this heroification and deification
does not seem to have been clearly described by any scholar.
But by the end of the first century A.D., says Giles in his
Confucianism^ "the birthplace of Confucius had become a
goal for the Confucian pilgrim; a shrine had been built
there, and even Emperors found their way thither, to do
honour to the great Teacher. " Soon there would be
images, and tablets and rituals for Confucius the god as for
the gods described in the Classics by Confucius the historian.
To quote Giles: "In 505 A.D., the first Confucian temple,
as we now understand the term, was bviilt and dedicated.
Images of Confucius were then introduced into the temple,
some say for the first time; others hold that in A.D. 178 a
likeness of Confucius had been placed in his shrine, a
substitute for the wooden tablet in use up to that date.
* * * Gradually, the people came to look upon Confucius
as a god to be propitiated for the sake of worldly
advantages."

Confucianism ultimately becomes like the modern
Hindu Shaivaism, Vaishnavism, etc., the cult of Confucius
as a Deity, a Nature-Force or Energy. So that even
without Buddhism the Celestials are like the Indians in
religious conceptions.

In China as in India the course of cultural evolution
had passed through almost the same stages. About 3rd
century B.C. , we see that landmark at which the Arts of Poetry
and Music requisitioned the Arts of Sculpture and Painting to
assist them in being handmaids to Religion. The mythology
which had up till then been elaborated only by poets and
singers began now to be enriched and receive a new character

IMAGES IN INDIA 133

in bronze, clay, stones, and ink. The master-minds of the
age thought not only in words but also in metals and
kakemonos. Henceforth we have to decipher the signs of
Chinese religious consciousness in the world of hieroglyph-
ics and picture-writings as well as in the realm of bas-
reliefs, statuettes, drawings, pencil-sketches, and fully-
wrought images and portraits. In the history of every
religion the thinkers in bronze and canvas demand as much
attention as the intellectuals of letters. So the literati alone,
whether Confucian, Taoist or Buddhist, must not be our
sole guides as interpreters of Chinese Religion after the
fourth century B.C..

{b) In India
In his History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon Mr.
Vincent Smith quotes Prof. Percy Gardner to modify his
own statement that the "history of Indian art begins with
Asoka. " Gardner's words are: "But there can be no
doubt that Indian art had an earlier history. The art of
Asoka is a mature art." No specimens of images, how-
ever, whether Hindu, Buddhist or Jain, have been yet dis-
covered to illustrate the religious sculpture of the Asokan
age.

It is probably in the post- Asokan Bharhut stupa (3rd.-
2nd cent. B. C ?) that we come across the first Indian images.
The following is quoted from Cunningham's Stupa of
Bharhut by Vincent Smith : "Besides these scenes, which are
so intimately connected with the history of Buddhism there
are several bas-reliefs which seem to represent portions of
the history of Rama during his exile. There are also a few
scenes of broad humour in which monkeys are the chief
actors.

134 CHINESE RELIGION

Of large figures there are upwards of thirty alto-rilievo
statues of Yakshas and Yakshinis, Devatas, Naga Rajas.
* * * ^Yg ^jj^g ggg ^^^^ ^jjg guardianship of the north
was entrusted to Kuvera, King of the Yakshas, agreeably to
the teaching of the Buddhist and Brahmanical cosmogonies.
And similarh' we find that the other gates are confided to
the Devas and the Nagas. "

The image of Sirima, the goddess of Luck, comes also
from this age. In modern mythology Sn or S/ri is the
consort of A'ishnu.

Rhys Davids remarks about this image : "It may be
mentioned in passing that we have representations, of a very
early date, of this Siri, the goddess of Luck, of plenty and
success, who is not mentioned in the Veda. One of these is
marked in plain letters Sirniia Devatd ; and like Diana of
the Ephesians, she bears on her breast the signs of her
productivit3^ The other shows the goddess seated with
two elephauts pouring water over her. It is the oldest
instance of the most common representation of this popular
goddess."

Griiuwedel in his Buddhist art vi India also gives a
similar' story.

The following is taken from T/w Heart of Jain ism : "It
was during this time (^. 397 B.C.) that the two sects of
Osavala Jaina and Srimala Jaina arose. It is also said it was
now that the image of IMahavira ^^•as enshrined at Upakesa
Pattana. This is probably a reference to the first introduc-
tion of idol- worship into Jainism."

Smith begins his treatment of post-Asokan sculpture
with the followinsr remark:

IMAGES IN INDIA 135

"A detached pillar standing to the northeast of Besnagar
has been invested with special interest by the recent
discovery of a long concealed inscription on the base which
records the erection of the monument in honour of Vishnu
by Heliodoros, son of Dion, envoy from the great king
Antalkidas of Taxila to a local prince. Antalkidas is sup-
posed to have reigned about B.C. 170. The inscription states
that the column was crowned by an image of Garuda, the
monstrous bird sacred to the god. ' '

The following is quoted by Smith from Cousens about
the gateways at Sanchi which also represent post-Asokan
but pre-Christian art; "The faces, back and front of the
beams and pillars, are crowded with panels of sculpture in
bas-relief representing scenes in the life of Buddha,
domestic and silvan scenes, processions, sieges, adoration of
trees and topes, etc."

Images of Buddha do not occur at this period,
which is represented by Besnagar, Bodhgaya, Bharhut, and
Sanchi. ' 'The early artists did not dare to portray his bodily
form * * * being content to attest his spiritual presence
by silent symbols — the footprints, the empty chair and so
forth."

In the Sanchi sculptures ' ' we see the worship of a
Naga spirit represented by an image of the hooded cobra
housed in a shrine with a domical roof. It is possible that
the object of worship may be Buddha himself sheltered by
the hoods of Muchalinda, the Snake King. The Real
Presence of Buddha in these sculptures is always indicated
symbolically."

' ' A relief of unknown origin depicts * * * t]-ie
famous visit of Indra to Buddha seated in a cave." The
specimen dates " probably from the first century B.C.."

136 CHINESE RELIGION

Some Jaina bas-reliefs in Orissa, " the oldest of which
date from the second century B.C. , " describe a procession in
honour of Parswanatha, the precursor of Mahavira as the
founder of Jainism.

The oldest image of Buddha is a battered seated
figure at Tantrimalai in Ceylon, wearing a conical cap,
and is believed by Mr. Parker, author of Ancient Ceylon, to
"date from about the beginning of the Christian era."

The following is quoted from the Chinese Recorder
ii.l:

"In the reign of King Wu (B.C. 140-86) of the West
Han Dynasty a (gigantic"; gold image of Buddha was brought
(in B.C. 121) to China (forming part of the spoils of these
campaigns) and set up in the sweet spring temple. This
served as the model according' to which the images of
Buddha were afterwards made. King Hi of the same
dynasty (B.C. 6 to A.D. 1) sent learned men to search for
images and books of the Buddhist religion but thej^ returned
without having reached their destination. ' '

Giles also in his Confucianism refers to the tradition
that in B.C. 121 an image of Buddha was secured for the
first time. "This is further said to have been taken by
a victorious Chinese general from a Hun chieftain who was
in the habit of worshipping it. A later history says that
when the Emperor received the image, he had it placed in
the palace among some other images, all of which averaged
about ten feet in height. He did not sacrifice to it, but
merely burnt incense and worshipped it with prayer."

The history of Indian art would thus indicate that in
Asoka's time Sakyasimha was being deified and wor-
shipped as the Buddha^ the Buddha-cult was recognised
as the other cults e.g., Vishmi-cult, Rdma-ctilt, etc., but

IMAGES IN INDIA 137

the paraphernalia of worship did iiot probably include
an icon. In the post-Asokan age, i.e.^ the second century
B.C., there were images of gods and goddesses, saints and
avataras, Brahmanic as well as non-Brahmanic. But the
real age of Image-worship had not yet come. It can be
safely stated, however, that the religious consciousness was
fully ripe for it, and that this aid to religion was to be ex-
ploited by the follower of every cult as soon as sculptors and
painters were able to supply their handiworks in large
number. The moment came towai-ds the end of the pre-
Christian and beginning of the Christian era, when the
Graeko-Roman artists were firmly established in the north-
western hinterland of India.

It has to be observed, finally, that image-worship
has passed through the same stages both in India and
China, and the process of deification of Confucius and
L/aotsze is exactly parallel to that of Sakyasimha
and Mahavira. The recognition of Confucius as a god
to be worshipped like other gods through an image is a
few centuries later than that of his more favoured colleagues
of India. But images as symbols of divinity have been
synchronous among the two peoples.

CHAPTER VI.
The Birth of Buddhism

(B.C. 150— A.D. 100)

Section 1.

Introduction of Buddha-cult into China.

(a) Chinese Romanticism.

Historically speaking, Buddhism was introduced into
China under Mingti, the Han Emperor, in A.D. 67. There
are legendary traditions of the Celestials having had knowl-
edge of the new faith in Chou times and at least since the
time of the first Emperor, the contemporary of Asoka. The
traditions do not seem to have been thoroughly unhistorical
in view of the fact that the Maurya Emperor (c B.C. 250) was
a great internationalist and was always ambitious to extend
the Indian sphere of influence in every direction, and also
because the Han Emperor Wuti (B.C. 140) was a great
explorer of Central and Western Asia.

But even if the Asokan or later Indian Missions to
China are unfounded and be regarded as impossible, the
Chinese sympathy with, and knowledge of, Buddhism
during that early period were, at any rate, philosophically
very probable, in fact, almost a psychological necessity.
That the Chinese intellect of the period was eminently
adapted to a new mythology of Romanticism would be ap-
parent from Fenollosa 's remarks in his chapter on "Chinese
Art of the Han Dynasty":

' ' The poetry of Han * * * remained largely
Tcioist or Individualistic, enforcing the prime fact which all

CHINESE ROMANTICISM 139

later Chinese critics, and their European Sinologist pupils
have ignored,. that almost all the great imaginative art work
of the Chinese mind has sprung from those elements in
Chinese genius, which if not anti-, were at least non-
Confucian. This poetry is almost alwaj's in the southern
romantic style."

Professor FenoUosa also speaks .of the "philosophical
and romantic interest in the Taoist stories of the West"
which inspired the great Han Emperor Wuti "to inaugurate
the Turkestan campaigns. He summoned about him the
individualistic genius of his day, professed to believe in and
share the Taoist mystical powers, and determined to revisit
the Queen of his Taoist paradise."

The romantic story of the actual introduction, also,
points to the same inevitability of the Buddha-cult
extending sway over the spiritual consciousness of the
Celestials. The dream of the Emperor was not the "fine
frenzy" of an individual but an index to the whole race-
psychology. ' 'Imagination bodies forth the forms of things
unknown. " So the Chinese imagination evolved the
Buddha-cult in the guise of an Imperial dream as it had
produced so many other cults in other guises.

The story is told by Hackmann thus: "The com-
monly accepted date of the real entrance of Buddhism into
China is during the reign of Emperor Mingti (A.D. 58-76).
This ruler is said to have had a dream in which a high,
shining gold image of a god appeared to him, which entered
his palace. The interpreter of the dream — a brother of the
Emperor — attributed this apparition to the Buddha Sakya-
muni, who was revered in Central Asia and India, and who
demanded worship in China also. * * * The Emperor
sent an embassy through Central Asia to Khotan (the land

140 _ CHINESE RELIGION

of tlie Yueli-chi) to procure the things requisite for the
practice of the new religion. The emissaries— eighteen in
number — left the imperial court in the year A.D. 65 and
returned in 67, accompanied by two monks, Kasiapa Matanga
and Gobharana (the latter arriving a little after the former),
as well as in possession of Buddha images and scriptures.
A temple was built for the new religion, in which the two
representatives lived, and gave themselves to the work of
translating the most important Buddhist instructions into
Chinese. The imperial palace of residence at that time was
Loyang, the present Honan-fu. It was here that Buddhism
first took root in Northern China."

The admission of Buddha into the Chinese pantheon in
the first century A.D. was not an extraordinary incident in
the life of the Celestials. It belongs to the same category
as the promulgation of the worship of Tai Mountain by the
First Emperor in the 3rd century B.C., and of other cults in
the pre-Christian era, and also as the recognition of Confu.cius
as a god about A.D. 555 when, to quote Giles, it was enact-
ed that a Confucian temple should be built in every prefec-
tural city in the empire. Chinese mentality had ever been
manufacturing myths and deities out of forces scattered here
and there and everywhere. The only contributions of
India were (l) a few new names, e.g., those of Buddha,
Avalokiteswara, etc., and (2) a new form or mould in
which the original myth-creating and iconising instinct of
the Chinese was to express itself.

The traditional Chinese literature and philosophy rep-
resented, on the one hand, b}^ Laotsze and Chuangtsze, and
on the other, by Confucius and Mencius, had pre-disposed the
people for the new cult and were quite adequate to assimi-
late it when it was introduced. For as yet the influence of

THE RELIGION OF LOVE 141

Indian thought was insignificant. The number of Sanskrit
woiks translated into Chinese was very meagre, intercourse
between Hindus and Chinese infrequent, and in the realm
of sculpture and painting there are absolutely no evidences
of any contact between the two peoples. The great epoch
of the Hindxi sphere of influence in China's world of letters
and art was to come under the mighty Tangs about six
hundred years later, after Hiuen Thsang's return from India
(A.D. 645).

Hindu missionising activity, during this period, for
the propagation of the Buddha-cult, since the pioneer work
of the first two missionaries, is described in the following
extract :

"In the reign of Changli (A.D. 76-89) the chief of
the Chu Kingdom became a devoted follower of Buddhism
and many more books were imported. Bighty years after-
wards a Parthian monk arrived at Loyang (Honan) with a
collection of sutras some of which he translated with great
intelligence and perspicuity. More monks arrived in the
reign of Lingli (168-170) from the country of the Getse
and from India, and translated the Nirvana and other
sutras with great spirit and fidelity.'' — Werner's Chinese
Sociology.

{b) The Religion of Love

It need only be stated here (1) that what has generally
been known to scholars as Mahayanisni (Greater or Higher
Vehicle), as contrasted with the HinayHnism (Lesser or
Lower Vehicle ) of Sakyasimha's apostles, has been called
Buddhism in these pages;

(2) That the m3-thology, iconography and canon which
were introduced into China from Central Asia were neither

142 CHINESE RELIGION

what the vian Sakya had taught as Nirvanism nor what
Asoka had propagated as his Dhamma^ both probably
•coming under Hinayanism, — but formed the ingredients of
Mahayanism*, which alone I have ventured to call Buddhism
as being the cult of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas ;

And (3) that the language of Mahayanic Bibles was not
Pali, like that of Hinayana, but Sanskrit, the language of
universal culture in India.

It is beyond the scope of the present work to prove the
connection of Hinayanism with the ChMndogya Upanishad
or with the Scnnkhya Barsmia of India. Nor is it the
object to catalogue the gods and goddesses of the Mahayanic
pantheon so carefully done by Mrs. Getty. The processes,
also, by which Mahayanic eschatology and metaphysics were
disentangling themselves from the previous Hinaydnic^
Upanishadic^ and Darsanic systems need not detain us.

I have already mentioned Avatarahood and image-
worship. A few more characteristics of Mahayanism are
being given in the words of Dr. Richard in his Neiu Testa-
ment of Higher Buddhism :

1. " Help from God to save oneself and others from
suffering.

2. Communion with God, which gave the highest
ecstatic rest to the soul.

3. Partaking of the nature of God by new birth so as
to become Divine and Immortal oneself."

*The image and the Sanskrit language indicate that the faith was Mahily^nic.
Evidentl}' this form of Buddhism had been well established in Central Asia before
A.D. 65. What, then, is the date of Kanishka, especially of his famous council
associated with the name of Aswaghosha, where Mah&ytoic Buddhism is alleg-
ed to have been formulated for the first time? Kushan chronologj- seems to
require fresh revision in the light of facts from Chinese History. Vincent Smith
considers A.D. 78 to be the date of Kanishka's accession, but adds: "The
substantial controversy is between the scholars who place the accession of
Kanishka in B.C. 58 and those who date it in or about A.D. 78." He dates
the council somewhere about A.D. 100.

THE RELIGION OF LOVE 143

The following characteristics may be added from Hack-
mann's account:

1. The conception of an Eternal Deity.

2. The Bodhisattvas or Buddhas in posse.

3. The attainment of the Bodhisattvahood as the ideal
of life — consisting in "sympathy with all beings, and a
world-encompassing love."

4. The invocation of the Bodhisattva becomes the
central point to the householders. Remarkable stress is
laid on Faith,

5. The idea of a Paradise or a happy state of existence
as opposed to Hell.

These are the marks of a Religion with Love, Faith
and Hope as its basis and Romanticism as its inspiring
force. Its Bible has, therefore, been rightly called the
Awakening of Faith. It is a work in Sanskrit by
Aswaghosha* (1st century A. D.?).

The same Emotionalism and Idealism could be noticed
in the whole super-natural and anthropomorphic god-lore
of contemporary India. One common ocean of Devotionalism
was being fed by Mahayana, as by Shaiva, Saura, Vaishnava,
Jaina, and other theologies.

For the first time in world's religious history men
opened their hearts and began to love. It was not an
age of passionless stoics, mere brain-labourers and cold
book-lorists, but of lovers, bhaktas, devotees, Messiahs and
apostles. The Jataka-stories, the Ramayana-verses and
Gita-literature could flourish not in an atmosphere of
" sophists, calculators and economists" but in the world of
warm-blooded enthusiasts, men of faith and hope ' ' believing

* The Doctrine of Sunya, i.e. Void, as an important feature of 'Mahayanism
is attributed to NagArjuna, one of its founders like Aswaghosha.

144 CHINESE RELIGION

where we cannot prove." These were meant not for
abstract academicians but for such as could inhibit their
senses in order to focus their whole attention on the culture
of the heart so that it might be the capital of the ' Kingdom
of Ood.'

Each of these Religions of Love embodied —
" The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow. ' '
The apostles of Bhakti or Heart-culture asked the
questions :

" Would you understand
The language with no word,
The speech of brook and bird
Of waves along the sand ?
Would you know how sweet
The falling of the rill,
The calling of the hill,
All tunes the days repeat? ' '
And the right romantic reply that was preached to the
devotees v/as the following sufra :

' ' The secret of the ear
Is in the open heart. "
It was the creed or message of the "open heart' ' that
the Mahayanists and others were propagating in India. A
similar situation came to pass when centuries later Jesus
was repudiating the "Legalism" of the scribes and the
Book-religion of Judaism.

The human and mystic elements in these faiths which
postulate the Infirmitj' of Man and the Mercy of God are as
different from the primitive Nature-cult as from the practice
of Dhamma or the study of Sakyan and Confucian Dialogties.,
but have historically grown out of both.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ROMANTIC RELIGION 145

The Buddliism that came into the land of Confucius
was thus only one of the expressions of the comprehensive
cult of IvOve and Romanticism which manifested itself at the
same tim'e in the promulgation of the worship of Vishnu^
Krishna, Shiva, etc.. And the same religious emotionalism
was being exploited by sculptors to enrich their Buddhist or
Shaiva arts.

This common origin it is which makes it often so
difficult to distinguish between the images of the gods and
goddesses belonging to the Buddhistic and non-Buddhistic
pantheons of Hinduism. This is why Chinese, Korean and
Japanese forms of Buddhism look so similar to the many
varieties of present-day Indian religion in spite of modifica-
tions under^the trans-Himalayan soil and race-characteristics.
This is why in spite of thfe disappearance of Buddha as
a god from Indian consciousness, Buddhism may be said to
live in and through the other cults of modern Hinduism,
e.g. Vaishnavism, Shaivaism, Jainism, etc..

Section 2.

Exit Sakya, Enter Buddha and His Host.

(fl) The Psychology of Romantic Religion.

Psychologically speaking, therefore, as we have
indicated above, Buddhism was born almost simultaneously
in China and India. It need not be considered as
a foreign commodity imported into China but the
inevitable outcome of its age-long social evolution. The
religious consciousness of the Chinese has ever had the
some stuff as that of the Hindu, and each had paved the
way quite independently for the recognition of an Avataray
a deified man or a God incarnate in human form. Invention

146 CHINESE RELIGION

of deities out of historical, semi-historical or legendary
characters or out of Nature-Forces had been going on
among both peoples all through their history. Sooner or
later the "Enlightened" One was to get a place in the
pantheon, sooner or later the Great Sage was to be a colleague
of the Elemental Forces. It was an accident that Buddha
was the name of the god to be worshipped first in both
countries. It was an accident also that this Buddha was
supplied to China from an Indian theological laboratory.

The contrast between Sakya the preacher and Buddha
the god, or Confucius the moralist and Confucius the god,
has its parallel in Christology also. Professor Bacon writes
in his Making of the New Testament : ' ' Modern criticism
expresses the contrast in its distinction of the gospel ^/ Jesus
from the gospel about Jesus."

The Pauline "doctrine of Incarnation appealing to the
eternal manifestation of God in man," i.e., of Jesus as an
Avatara, is thus explained by Dr. Bacon : " Whether Paul
himself so conceived it or not, the Gentile world had no
other moulds of thought wherein to formulate such a
Christology than the current myth of Redeemer-gods.
The value of the individual soul had at last been discovered,
and men resorted to the ancient personifications of the forces
of nature as deliverers of this new-found soul from its
weakness and mortality. The influential religions of the
time were those of personal redemption by mystic union
with a dying and resurrected saviour- god, an Osiris, an
Adonis, an Attis, a Mithra. Religions of this type were
everywhere displacing the old national faiths. The Gentile
could not think of the Christ primarily as a son of David
who restores the kingdom to Israel. * * * The. whole
conception was spiritualised. The enemies overcome were

SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE OF IRAN AND ISRAEL 147

the spiritual foes of liumanity, sin and death ; redemption
was not the deliverance of Israel out of the hand of all their
enemies, * * =i= ft -^^g ^-j^g rescue of the sons of Adam
out of the bondage to evil powers. " It is human instinct
to manufacture a god out of a great Teacher.

We have traced in the preceding chapter the develop-
ment of the az/aiara-cnlt in China and India. It is always
difi&cult to point historically to the exact date when an idea
is started. But so far as India is concerned, the best ' ex-
ternal evidence ' is that supplied by the sculptors of the
post-Asokan age (2nd century B.C.?).

These bear at once the indelible impressions of the
Vishnu-Sirima worship, the avatdra-myths of the Ramayana,
and similar legends of the Jatakas.

"It stands there," says Lloyd in his Creed of Half
Japan^ "in the clear-cut stone monuments of India that
pre-Christian India believed in Buddha as a being whose
birth was supernatural, the result of a spiritualjpower over-
shadowing the mother ; as one whose birth was rejoiced over
by angels and testified to by an aged seer ; as one who had
been tempted by the evil one and had overcome; as one
whose life had been one of good deed and holy teachings ; as
one who had passed into the unseen, leaving behind him
a feeling of regret for him who had thus gone away."

(<5) Spiritual Experience of Iran and Israel

It is a significant fact that the first epoch of Inter-
nationalism in world's history beginning with the Hellenistic
period was the time of gestation for new emotional cults
throughout the world. The spiritual experience of all
mankind was passing through the same stages. Zoroastrian-
ism was evolving Mithraism, Chinese Classics were evolving

148 CHINESB REI/IGION

the worship of Canfuciias, Hinduism was evolving Btiddha-
cult, Shiva-cult, Rama-cult and so on, and Judaism was in
the birth-throes of the Christ-cult.

With regard to the development in Iran we read in
Moulton's Early Religious Poetry of Persia : ' ' We still
meet the old familiar names : Ahura Mazdah is still
supreme, with the Amesha Spentas around him, and.
Zarathustra is still the Prophet of the Faith. But even
while we shut our eyes to the new divine names which
crowd upon us, we cannot help seeing that the familiar
names carry new associations. The Prophet is no longer
a man of like passions with ourselves, a fervid religious
and moral Reformer, eagerJy pressing his lofty doctrine
of God and duty against much opposition, and exhibiting
very human emotions of elation and discouragement as the
fortunes of the campaign sway to and fro. He is a purely
supernatural figure, holding converse with Ahura Mazdah
on theological and ritual subjects, which rarely come near
the practical and homely religion inculcated by the singer
of the Gathas. * * * His own name had become semi-
divine. ' '

Rev. Charles, Canon of Westminster, writes in his
Religious Development between the Old and New Testaments:
"One of the strongest impressions experienced by the reader
who studies in their historical order the Canonical and non-
Canonical Books of the Old Testament is the consciousness
of the continuous, and in most instances, the progressive,
re-interpretation of traditional beliefs and symbols.
* * *

Down to the fourth century B. C. , progress was slow and
hesitating, but from the third century onwards the work

BUDDHA-CULT AND ITS INDIAN ' COGNATES ' ' 149

went on apace, not througli the efforts of the ofi&cial religious
leaders of the nation, but mainly through its unknown and
unofiScial teachers, who issued their writings under the
names of ancient worthies in Israel. The anonymity or
pseudonymity * * characterised all the progressive
writings in Judaism from the third century B. C. onwards.
* * * All real progress in this direction was confined to a
school of mystics and seers. * * *

During this interval a new and more ruthless power had
taken the place of the Greek empire in the East, i.e.^ Rome.
This new phenomenon called, therefore, for a fresh re-inter-
pretation. * * * Every conception was undergoing
development or re-interpretation. Whole histories centre
round such conceptions as soul, spirit, ' sheol, Paradise, the
Messianic Kingdom, the Messiah, the Resurrection."

{c) Buddha-cult and its Indian "Cognates."

We have noticed in the previous chapter how the whole
Indian atmosphere was surcharged with the doctrines and
ideas described in the above extract. The following lines of
the Valmikian bards —

"For Vishnu's self disdained not mortal birth.

And heaven came with him as he came to earth" —
were the stock-in-trade of every religious sect. So that
centuries before the one "beneath the Syrian blue" declared
"I am the Way, the Life, the Truth," his brother-Messiah,
the Hindu Krishna, had asserted in the Gitd: "Forsake
all Dharmas {i.e., Ways, Taos, religions or creeds), make
Me alone thy way."

The following declaration of the Eord is from Griffith's
Specimens of Indian Poetry:

150 CHINESE REI/IGION

"I am the Father, and the fostering Nurse,
Grandsire, and Mother of the Universe ,
I am the Vedas, and the Mystic word,
The way, support, the witness and the Lord.
The Seed am I, of deathless quickening power
The Home of all, and mighty Refuge- tower.

* * 2K

When error leads a worshipper astray
To other Gods to sacrifice and pray.
Faith makes his gift accepted in my sight —
'Tis offered still to Me, though .not aright.
Faith makes the humblest offering dear to Me,
Leaves, fruit, sweet water, flowers from the tree;
His pious will in gracious part I take.
And love the gift for his devotion's sake. "
The lengthy oration of Lord Krishna proceeds in this
strain, which is nothing short of Romanticism carried to the
nth power. Here is the Yankee idealist Whitman's in-
dividualism lifted up to the transcendental plane. One is
reminded of his characteristic Song of Myself :
"Magnifying and applj'ing come I,
Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah,
Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son, and Hercules his

grandson,
Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahma, Buddha,
In my portfolio placing Manito loose, Allah on a leaf,

the crucifix engraved,
With Odin and the hideous-faced Mexitili and every idol

and image,
Taking them all for what they are worth and not a cent
more," etc., etc.
Whitmanism spiritualised is the mysticism of Git6,.

BUDDHA-CUI,T AND ITS INDIAN COGNATES " 151

These verses from the Gita give a picture of the
common spiritual milieu in the midst of which the various
cults of Hinduism were born. The new mythologies are
therefore "cognates" and all present a family-likeness.

Sakyasimha had been one of a legion of "cognates."
His Nirvanism was one of the numerous metaphysico-moral
systems of the Hindus in the 6th century B.C.. Similarly
diiring this period (B.C. 150-100 A.D.) Buddhism or
Mahayanism was one of the numerous "cognate" cults
that had been developing among the people of Hindusthan.
This Buddhism should be called Hinduism of the Buddha-
cult, just as Vaishnavism of the period was Hinduism of
Vishnu-cult, and Shaivaism was Hinduism of the Shiva-cult,
and so on.

Buddha was only one of the gods of a vast pantheon.
It consisted of the Supreme Being variously conceived and
diversely named, as well as the full-fledged deities, avataras,
and the gods in posse. Among Buddha's host are to be
included not only Adi-Buddhas, Avalokiteswaras, the
Bodhisattvas and the other " Gods of Northern Buddhism,"
but also Rama, Krishna, Vasudeva, P^rsvanfitha, Tirthan-
karas, etc., to mention a few semi-historical names, and
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, etc., descended from the Vedic
deities.

That Mahayanism and other forms of Hinduism were
not mutually exclusive would be evident from the policy of
Kanishka, the Indo-Scythian monarch, generally regarded as
the Asoka of the "New" Buddhism. Says Mr. Vincent Smith:
"Such a Buddha (a god with his ears open to the prayers
of the faithful and served by a hierarchy of Bodhisattvas)
rightly took a place among the gods of the nations comprised
in Kanishka 's wide-spread empire, and the monarch, even

152 CHINESE RELIGION

after his 'conversion,' probably continued to honour both
the old and new gods, as, in a later age, Harsha did al-
ternate reverence to Siva and Buddha.''

Almost all the coins of Vasudeva I, the last powerful
Kushan ruler (A.D. 140-73?), "exhibit on the reverse the
figure of the Indian god Siva, attended by his bull Nandi,
and accompanied by the noose, trident and other insignia of
Hindu iconography. ' ' The thoroughly Indian name of this
King, which is a synonym for the god Vishnu, is a proof,
according to Smith, of the rapidity with which the foreign
invaders had succumbed to the influence of their environ-
ment. The coins of Kadphises II, the predecessor of
Kanishka, also tell the same tale.

It is clear that Buddha, Shiva and Vishnu existed side
by side as deities in Hindu religious consciousness during
the first and second centuries of the Christian era.

Section 3.

The '' Balance of Accounts " in International Philosophy

(a) Rival Claims of the East and the West

The relations between Greek thought aud the Asiatic
religions during the Hellenistic period may be understood
from the following account.

According to Bmmet in Charles' Apocrypha and
Pseudepigi-apha^ the third book of Maccabees \\Titten about
B.C. 100 in Hebrew "expresses a bitter opposition to the
attempts at hellenising, which so nearly overwhelmed
Judaism in the second century B.C., and shows no sympathy
with the developments of thought and doctrine, which at
that time were growing up within the Jewish Church. "

RIVAL CLAIMS OF THE EAST AND THE WEST 153

So also the Hebrew Book of Jubilees written between
B.C. 135 and B.C. 105 defends, in Canon Charles' words,
' ' Judaism against the Hellenistic spirit which had been in
the ascendant early in this century, and to prove that the
lyaw was of everlasting validity."

Dr. Moulton writes in his Early Religious Poetry of
Persia: "Are we justified in claiming Zarathustra's right
to be acknowledged as the founder of apocalyptic? It is
too large a question to answer here in any adequate way,
but we may briefly recognise the strong probability that
contacts with a Zoroastrianised Persia did much to stimulate
in Israel the growth of a form of literature which from the
Maccabean era downwards dominated Jewish thought and
created the milievi of the Gospel proclamation."

Mr. Hogarth writes in the Ancient East : ' ' His
(Alexander's) recorded attitude towards the Brahmans of
the Punjab implies the earliest acknowledgment made
publicly by a Greek that in religion the West must learn
from the Kast."

Further, "the expansion of Mithraism and of half a
dozen other Asiatic and Egyptian cults, which were drawn
from the Bast to Greece and beyond before the first century
of the Hellenistic Age closed, testified to the early existence
of that spiritual void in the West which a greater and
purer religion, about to be born in Galilee and nurtured in
Antioch, was at last to fill.

A ring of principalities, Median, Parthian, Persian,
Nabathoean, had emancipated the heart of the Orient from
its short servitude to the West ; and though Rome, and
Byzantium after her, would push the frontier of effective
European influence somewhat eastward again, their Hel-

154 CHINESE REI.IGION

lenism could never capture again that heart which the
Seleucids had failed to hold."

In his Studies in C/iincse Religion Parker records the
opinion that " it is impossible to deny that the ideas of a
Messiah of Salvation, good works and so on, may reasonably
have suggested themselves to the Nazarenes through the
efforts of Buddhist monks. ' '

The following is from Lloyd's Creed of Half Japan :
' ' The existence of Buddhism in Alexandria has often been
suspected. Scholars have seen Buddhists in the communities
of the Essen es in Palestine, in the monastic congregations
of the Therapeutoe described by Philo, in the Hermetic
books of Egypt. * * * j^ jjg^g g^igo bgcu oftcu suspcctcd
that Gnosticism was derived from Buddhism. ' '

On the other side have been opinions that Iranian,
Hindu and Chinese religions of B.C. 200 — A.D. 100 owe
their origin to Biblical lore. According to Rev. Timothy
Richard, " it is more and more believed that the Mahaydn
Faith is not Buddhism, properly so-called, but an Asiatic
form of the same gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus
Christ." f'And Lloyd believes that the religious mission to
China during the reign of Miugti in A.D. 67 was "not
a Buddhist mission at all " from India, but a Christian
propaganda, and "that under Indian names of these two
missionaries there may have lurked a Greek nationality."

Mr. Lloyd refers to the tradition of the visit of the Magi
or the Iranian '[Sages ' to the cradle of the Infant Saviour as
an indication of the way in which the wind was blowing.
But the tradition should be regarded as having the same value
as that of pious Buddhists who have recorded the legend of
Vedic deities dancing attendance on the infant Sakyasimha

RIVAL CLAIMS OF THE EAST AND THE WEST 155

on his nativity. It proves really, on the contrary, that the
philosophy and metaphysics as well as theology of the
Persian ' ' wise men ' ' were the most powerful factors in the
socio-religious world of the time, and, therefore, it was a
pardonable vanity on the part of the apostles of the Galilean
to imagine the representatives of the established order as
having paid homage to the newly risen Star.

Any reader of Lloyd's' chapter on ' The New Testament
in touch with the East ' in his Creed of Half Japan wotild
see how impossible and hopeless a task it is to prove the
early influence of the Christ-cult on the lands of Zarathustra,
Sakyasimha and Confucius. In the first place, the
chronology of Biblical literature itself is not yet beyond
criticism. In the second place, according to Prof.
Bacon, in the Making of the New Testament ^ it was not
before the end of the second century A.D. that the New
Testament was canonised. For, on the authority of the
Tubingen school of Bible-criticism founded by Ferdinand
Baur, "the period covered, from the earliest Pauline Epistle
to the latest brief fulminations against Gnostic Doketism
and denial of resurrection and judgment, is included in the
century from A.D. 50 to 150."

The Sanskrit Rama-stories and Pali Jataka-stories which
are related on the stupas of the 2nd century B.C. could
not certainl}^ be influenced by stories which became current
several centuries afterwards. Buddha-cult, Rama-cult,
Krishna-cult, Shiva-cult and Vishnu-cult had already been
formed with icons and sutras before Christ-cult was definitely
established in Asia Minor. Historically speaking, Christ-
ology and Mariolatry are later than similar ' -logies ' and
' -latries ' in Persia, India and China.

156 CHINESE RELIGION

The followi-ng opinion of Giles may also be quoted:
' ' It seems almost certain that the Mahayana School had
already developed in western India before any knowledge
of the Gospels could possibly have travelled so far.
Nagarjuna, its reputed founder, is generally assigned to the
second century A.D. , and it does not appear to have been
earlier than the middle of that century, that the Christians
at Antioch began to gather together the records of their
Founder, nor indeed until the end of the second century
that the Gospels became publicly known through the writ-
ings of Irenseus and Tertullian. "

The conclusion of Mr. Vincent Smith regarding the
* ' extent of the Hellenic influence upon India from the
invasion of Alexander to the Kushan or Indo-Scythian
conquest at the end of the first century of the Christian era"
is thus given in his History of India :

"The Greek influence merely touched the fringe of
Hindu civilisation and was powerless to modify the structure
of Indian institutions in any essential respect."

The following statement of the same author, however,
is unsupported by evidence and partially contradicts the
above remark : ' ' The newer Buddhism * * * must
have been largely of foreign origin, and its development was
the result of the complex interaction of Indian, Zoroastrian,
Christian, Gnostic and Hellenic elements which had been
made possible by the conquest of Alexander, the formation
of the Maurya Bmpire in India, and above all by the
unification of the Roman world under the sway of the
earlier emperors."

parallelism and " open questions" 157

(3) Parallelism and "Open Questions"

It is not justifiable to explain tlie problem of the nature
of the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism
excfept by the hypothesis of an original common fund of
spiritual ideas. The following remark of Johnston can,
therefore, be accepted:

' ' We may then admit the possibility that some of the
characteristic doctrines shared by Christianity and the
Mahayana — such as the efficacy of belief in divine or super-
human savioiirs incarnating themselves in man's form for
the world's salvation — were partly drawn from sources to
which, the builders of both, religions had equally ready
access."

Dr. Timothy Richard remarks in The New Testament
of Higher Buddhism: "It is getting clearer each year now
that these common doctrines of New Buddhism and
Christianity were not borrowed from one another, but that
both came from a common source. Babylonia, where some
Jewish prophets wrote their glorious visions of the Kingdom
of God that was to come. Babylon then had much inter-
course with Western India and Persia, as well as with Judaea,
Egypt and Greece. From this centre these great life-giving,
inspiring truths were carried like seeds into both the East
and West, where they were somewhat modified under
different conditions. "

About Babylon and early Christianity, however, Mr.
Johnston remarks: "It is in the discussions of these
schools (Hinayana) orthodox and unorthodox, not in
Babylonian poetry or prophecy or in the missionary activity
of a St. Thomas, that we must look for the ultimate
sources of the principal streams that flow into the ocean of
Mahayanist belief. ' '

158 CHINESE REWGION

In fact, as for the place of Babylonia in world's
religious history and the general intellectnal condition of the
Hellenistic and Grseco-Roman countries, the only statements
that may be safely made seem to be the following : —

1. Hellenism was a composite product — neither thor-
oughly Greek nor thoroughly Asiatic. Therefore anything
traced to Hellenistic influence must be considered as much
oriental as occidental.

2. Hellenism was, after all, not very deep and wide.
It may be presumed that the important landmarks in
world's thought during this period bore the impress of
the mutual influence of the East and the West, and that
the Buddha-myth (as well as Rama-myth and Krishna-
myth) of Eastern Asia and the Christ-myth of Western
Asia were held in solution in the grand philosophic cauldron
of post-Alexandrian eclecticism. But definite historic evi-
dences to prove the impact in each case are not yet forth-
coming.

Rather, as Vincent Smith observes, " the invasions of
Alexander, Antiochos the Great, Demetrios, Eukratides
and Menander were, in fact * * merely military in-
cursions which Ipft no appreciable mark upon the institu-
tions of India; * * * |-jjg impression made by Greek
authors upon Indian literature and science is hardly traceable
until after the close of the period under discussion."

3. Each one of the systems of philosophy, metaphysics
and eschatology which we notice full-fledged between B.C.
150 and A.D. 100 can be explained independently as the
consummation of an evolutional process along traditional
lines without any reference to the international milieu or the
:ontact between the East and the West. Thus Platonism

PARALLELISM AND OPEN QUESTIONS " 159

migiit lead to Stoicism, "Cynicism" and Neo-Pktonism
without any so-called Oriental impact. So Judaism might
lead to Gnosticism, Apocalypticism, and Christ-cult without
the influence of Neo-Platonists or Zoroastrians. So also
Zoroastrianism could be the basis of Mithraism without any
Hellenistic or Hindu factors. Original Chinese mysticism
might similarly give rise to later Taoism. The cult of
avataras in India and China also can be explained by totally
ignoring the epoch of internationalism and rapprochement
between East and West. The Brahmanas, Upanishads,
Darsanas and Tripitakas alone can explain Mahayana,
Shaiva, Krishnaite and other faiths.

4. Under these circumstances it is desirable to re-
cognise the parallelism in the trend of religiotis and
philosophical growth in India, China, Persia and Syria, and
not to dogmatise about the parenthood of any system with
regard to the rest. The psychology and metaphysics of
Hinduism with its Buddha-cult, Krishna-cult, etc., and
those of Judaism with its Christ-cult were independent
phenomena growing out of the same ' ' conditions of tem-
perature and pressure, ' ' to use a metaphor from physical
science.

5. It may be stated that considerable research has to
be bestowed on the Parthian, Bactrian, Persian, and Syrian
languages and. literatures, and the results of these investi-
gations checked by comparison with the findings of Indo-
Chinese scholarship, on the one hand, and Hellenic
scholarship, on the other, before the problem of international
debit and credit can be settled in that most fruitful period
of world' s religious history.

160 CHINESE REIvIGION

It is beyond the capacity of the present author to deal
with that problem of the ' ' Balance of Accounts ' ' between
Asia and Europe. It seems that for some time to come
the following, among others, would still remain "open
questions :"

1. How far Zeno, a Phoenician of Cyprus, the founder
of Stoic Universalism, was a product of the wedlock be-
tween the Bast and the West,

2. What actual influence the missionaries sent out
by Asoka to propagate his Dhamma had on the Magi of
Iran (of. Prof. Jackson's Zoroaste?-) or in the centres of
Greek culture like Antioch, Tarsus and Alexandria; Ac-
cording to Vincent Smith, as would be apparent to every
student of facts, "Asoka was much more anxious to com-
municate the blessings of Buddhist teaching to Antiochus
and Ptolemy than to borrow Greek notions from them. ' '

3. How far Saul, the Jew of Tarsus, an apostle of
Christianity, was an "oriental who combined the religious
instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of Greece."

4. (Coming somewhat later), to what extent Plotinus,
the greatest of Neo-Platonists, who lived in the 3rd century
of the Christian era, imbibed the mystical pantheism of
Chuang-tsze' s Tao-te-ching or the Indian Gita and Veddnla.
The following account from Webb's History of Philosophy
would lead one to rank Plotinus with the Chinese Taoists
and Hindu Yogaists. ' ' The spiritual ambition of Plotinus
was not to be satisfied by sympathy with the universal life,
nor yet by contemplation of the eternal Intelligence. He
sought, and was believed by his friends on several occasions
to have attained, a union with the ultimate principle, the

THE TARTARS IN WORLD-HISTORY 161

highest God of all. * * * Union with the Highest can
be attained only in a state in which all sense of distinction
is lost, a state of ecstasy or rapture. ' '

Section 4.

The " Middlemen " in Indo-Chinese Intercourse.
{a) The Tartars in World-History.

It was from Central Asia that the new mythology of
India was introduced into China. It supplied two mis-
sionaries, several canonical manuscripts in Sanskrit lan-
guage, and a golden image. Central Asia, as tlie con-
necting link between Chinese and Hindu culture, therefore,
demands our attention during this period of the birth of
Buddhism.

In the history of Indo-Chinese civilisation generally and
of religious development in particular, the races of men
inhabiting the region vaguely called Central Asia, have
always played a prominent part. Their functions have
never been creative but only those of carriers, distributors,
intermediaries and middle-men. In the present instance,
they are responsible (1) for the initiation in India of what
is called the Grasco-Roman art, and, (2) for the transporta-
tion of Buddhist religion, art and literature from India
into China. A brief political anthropology would explain
•the inter-racial relations of the period.

The Maury a Empire of the Hindus (B.C. 320) was
chronologically the first empire in world's history, if we
leave out of consideration the ancient Assyrian, Egyptian
and Persian Monarchies. Alexander's brilliant conquests
did not lead to an empire because of his early death.. The
second Empire in world's history was that of the Chinese

162 CHINESE RELIGION

under Tsin (B.C. 220) and Han Dynasties. And the third
Empire was that of the Romans (1st century A.D.). It is
interesting to note that the first empire to be dismembered
was the Hindu, the second, the Chinese, and the third, the
Roman. It is still more interesting to note that the fall of
all the three empires was due ultimately to the invasions of
the same barbarian hordes.

These were the Central Asian races known under diverse
names, e.g., Tartar, Scythian, Yuechi, Kushan, Saka,
Hiung-nu, Hun, White Hun, and so forth. We need not
enter into the question of their blood-conuexions or linguistic
affiliations nor tarry to inquire as to which of these names
represents the genus and which the species, branch or family.
The most important thing for us to know is that the homeland
of peoples who could be successfully withstood neither by
the Asiatic nor by the Kuropean civilised nations was the
terra incognita named Central Asia. Readers of Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empii^e are familiar with the
story of "the barbarians of Scythia, * * * tjjg rude
ancestors of the most polished nations of the world."

Originally nomads, these Tartars had no culture of
their own, but succeeded in swooping upon well-established
civilisations through the vigour and virility characteristic of
pusne races. And as always happened in history in such
cases, ' ' captive Greece captured Rome. ' ' The Tartars will-
ingly allowed themselves to be captured by their slaves in'
India, China, as well as Burope, who were more enlightened
than they. They took for their intellectual and spiritual
masters those among whom they lived as conquerors, and
thoroughly adapted themselves to the local conditions by
matrimonial and other social connexions. In lieu of the
refinements of culture they obtained they imparted the

THE INDO-SCYTHIAN (tarTAr) KUSHANS 163

fresliiiess of their blood and strengtli of their physique to the
subject races. The ' ' Barbarians ' ' of Central Asia were thus
vandals in no sense. Modern Hindus, modern Chinese, as
well as modern Kuropeans, owe much of their ancient culture
and present vitality to intercourse with these hardy races.

(b) The Indo-Scythian (Tartar) Kushans

By the middle of the second century B.C., a branch of
the Tartar race, the Yuechi, was already on the move
towards the hinterland of Northern and North-western
India. There were no strong rulers either among Hindus
or among the peoples of the neighbouring Hellenistic
Kingdoms. The only powerful monarchy of the time was
that of the Hans of China. The Yuechis, therefore, had
smooth-sailing through the Indo-Bactrian and Indo-Parthian
territories and also the regions now called the North-western
Frontier Province of India.

By the first century A.D., i.e., about the time of the
founding of the Roman Empire, we hear of a first-class
Hindu-Tartar (Kushan) Power under Kanishka (A.D. 78-
123?)* with his capital at Purushapura (modern Peshawar).
Kanishka was the patron of the celebrated Congress (A.D.
100?) of Hindu philosophers and metaphysicians under
Vasumitra and Aswaghosha, to which tradition ascribes the
first formulation of Mahayanism. Just as the Nirzianissn of
Sakyasimha had been brought into being and nurtured under
more or less non- Aryan conditions of life in Eastern India,
so Mahayanism formally came into existence in Gandhara
in an atmosphere of newly Hinduised foreigners under the
patronage of a monarch whose territory was situated within
the westernmost confines of India and beyond. It must be

* Kushan Chronology is tentative.

164 CHINESE REWGION

remembered that a great part of the extra-Indian territory
of the Kushans had been included within the Maurya
Empire and hence had been the seat of Hindu culture since
at least B.C. 320.

Kanishka's predecessors and compatriots had learnt
sculpture from the Hellenistic schools of Bactria, and from
there imported teachers into their territory called Gandhara-
On the Indian soil they devoted themselves whole-heartedly
to Sanskrit language and literature as well as to the
prevailing metaphysics and mythology, the first lessons
of which they must have received in Bactria, Parthia, and
Khotan. One would like to know how these Hellenistic
art-traditions and Hindu culture-traditions were being
transformed in the process of assimilation with the race-
characteristics of these Yuechis (specifically, the Kushans).
For the present it is clear that the Grseco-Buddhist (also
called Gandhara) art and Hinduism of Buddha-cult were
born in an environment of Indianised Scythian or Tartar
Settlements. The place of Central Asia in the history of
Buddhism is thus very large.

The Kushans were progressive monarchs. They main-
tained relations of international commerce and diplomacy
with the Han Emperors on the East and the Roman
Emperors on the West. They also succeeded in extending
the Indian sphere of influence through their kith and kin
who were rulers of the neighbouring Central Asian regions.
External conditions for the propagation of Buddhism were
thus thoroughly satisfactory, and we have seen that so far
as the Chinese were concerned, their whole mental history
had led them up to it.

The relations between the Chinese and those ' ' middle-
men ' ' of Central Asia are being given in the words of Mr.

THE INDO-SCYTHIAN (tarTAr) KUSHANS 165

Vincent Smith, who describes the progress of Indian
Buddhist art eastwards in his History of Fine Art in India
and Ceylon :

' ' Communications between China and the Western
countries were first opened up during the time of the early
Han Dynasty (B.C. 226 to A.D. 25) by means of the
mission of Chang- Kien, who was sent as envoy to the Oxus
region and died about B.C. 1.14, That mission resulted in
the establishment of regular intercourse between China and
the Scythian powers, but did not involve contact with India.
In the year A.D. 8 the official relations of the Chinese go-
vernment with the western states came to an end, and when
the first Han dynasty ceased to exist in A.D. 25, Chinese
influence in those countries had vanished. But in A.D. 73
a great general named Pan-chao reduced the King of Khotan
to subjection, and from that date continued his victorious
career until his death in A.D. 102, when the power of China
attained its greatest western extension. In the last decade
of the first century Pan-chao inflicted a severe defeat on the
Kushan King of Kabul somewhere beyond the Pamirs in the
Yarkand or Kashgar country. Most probably that King
was Kanishka. After Pan-chao 's death the Kushan King
retrieved his defeat and occupied Khotan at some time
between A.D. 102 and 123. To that Indo-Scythian
conquest of Khotan I would attribute the rapid spread of
Indian languages, scripts, religion and art in Chinese
Turkistan, as disclosed by the discoveries of recent years. I do
not mean that Indian influence then first began to be felt, for
there is reason to believe that it crossed the passes more than
three hundred years earlier in the age of Asoka, but its

166 CHINESE RELIGION

great extension appears not to go back further than the first
quarter of the second century of the Christian era, the very
time when the art of Gandhara was at its best. "

A halfway house between Hindusthan and China was
the kingdom of Kucha, situated in the heart of Chinese
Turkestan. In the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal Dr.
Sylvain Levi writes about this Central Asian region : "In
the early centuries of the Christian era, Kucha received the
Buddhistic creed and culture to such a large and over-
whelming extent that the whole local situation became
Buddhistic. Situated, on account of its connection with
Khotan, well for commercial purposes, Kucha from this
time onward became a very prosperous and flourishing place
in which the activities of the merchants and the priests were
equally vigorous and in which commerce and culture played
an equally significant part. * * * Sanskrit became the
sacred language and was assiduously taught and studied in
the monasteries. ' '

The following extract from Fenollosa's chapter on
* Grseko-Buddhist art in China ' would give the whole
geography of the Kushan (Indo-Tartar) sphere of cultural
influence in Asia: "This wave of civilisation from
Gandhara passed northward from the Indus valley into the
great mountain passes of Balkh and Swat * * * and
advancing over the roof of the world to the great Turkestan
plain lying beyond the Pamirs, pushing up toward Kashgar
and Samarkand, and downward again to skirt the southern
borders of the great deserts which the Kunlung range * *
separates from Tibet, and so on to kingdoms far towards
the Chinese border, has been verifled by the important

GR^KO-BUDDHIST ICONOGRAPHY 167

recent explorations of Sven Hedin, Mr. Stein of the Indian
Government, and others."

According to Vincent Smith the culmination of the
Hellenistic sculpture of Gandhara ' 'may be dated from A.D.
50 to A.D. 150." "Thus the best productions of the
Gandhara Hellenistic school nearly synchronise with the
art of the Flavian and Antonine periods in western Asia and
Kurope, and in India with the reliefs or the great rail at
Amaravati in the Deccan, as well as with many sculptures
at Mathura on the Jumna. ' '

The Kushan-Hindus were great worshippers of images,
as would appear from the thousands of icons which have
come to light during the comparatively recent excavations.
' ' All the sculptures come from the Buddhist sites and
were executed in the service of Buddhist religion. * * *
Buddha may appear in the guise of Apollo, the god Brahma,
or in that of St. Peter. * * * However Greek may be
the form, the personages and incidents are all Indian."

"The statues and small groups represent Buddhas,
Bodhisattvas, or saints on the way to become Buddhas,
besides minor deities of the populous Buddhist pantheon.
* * * That system (Mahayaua) practically deified
Gautama Buddha, as well as other Buddhas, and sur-
rounded them with a crowd of attendant deities, including
Indra or Sakra, Brahma and other members of the
Brahmanical heavenly host, besides a multitude of attendant
sprites, male and female, of diverse kinds and varying
rank, in addition to human worshippers."

It was this Indo-Tartar iconography that supplied
models to the Chinese and Koreans and finally to the
Japanese.

CHAPTER VII.
A Period of So-called Anarchy in China

(A.D. 220-618)

Section 1.

Comparative Chronology and Comparative History.

The powerful Han Dynasty of Celestial Emperors came
to an end in A.D. 221 after a brilliant career of about four
centuries and a quarter. The Empire fell to pieces before
the inroads of the Tartar barbarians of the North. These
foreigners occupied almost the whole northern half of the
country and pushed the original Chinese dynasties down to
the South which had received civilising influences only
recently. It was a period of small contending states, native
and foreign, till A.D. 589, when the whole country came
under the Sui Dynasty, from whom the Tangs inherited a
unified Empire in A.D. 618.

An epoch of consolidation has always been followed
and preceded by an e])och of dismemberment. History has
repeated itself on these lines not only on the Chinese and
Indian continents and in other countries of Asia but also in
Europe taken as a whole, and in the European states taken
singly. Feudalistic disintegration is not due to the alleged
political incompetency of the oriental peoples but has been
a marked characteristic of the western races as well.

A parallel study of the dates and facts of political
history of the Chinese and Hindu as well as the European
races from earliest times down to 1815 (and even 1870)
would bring out the facts : —

COMPARATIVE CHRONOIvOGY & COMPARATIVE HISTORY 169

1. That there have been at least as many instances
of strong and centralised rule in the Orient as in the
Occident ; and necessarily as Inany periods of anarchy also.

2. That the durations of unified administration have
been equally long or short both in China and India as well
as in Europe.

3. That Chinese and Hindu histor}^ as well as the
history of other Asiatic peoples can present no fewer
Alexanders and Napoleons than the history of European
races.

4. That Asiatic aggressions upon Europe have been
at least as frequent as the inroads of European races into
the East,

5. That the defeat and expulsion of foreign invaders
by Asiatic peoples are as solid facts of oriental history as
the retreat of Persian, Saracen, Tartar and Turkish nation-
alities from the heart of Europe.

6. That the cases of successful resistance of enemies'
military inroads in Asiatic or European histor}^ can not be
conveniently explained away as instances of home-keeping
conservatism, or desire for " splendid isolation," or absence
of international spirit on the part of any people.

7. That the ability to bring within the pale of one
culture three himdred or four hundred millions of people
indicates as great ' ' aggressiveness ' ' on the part of the
Hindus or the Chinese as the ability to spread a common
civilisation among the heterogeneous races of Europe on the
part of the Westerners.

8. That if twenty, thirty, or forty millions be the
human basis of a ' nationality, ' as has been the case in the

170 CHINESE RELIGIOX

\A*est during the last forty je-Axs, Asiatic peoples have
alwaj-s given rise to such nation-states.

9. That fratricidal and internecine wars between
peoples of the same race and religion have been at least as
frequent in the West as in the East.

10. That instances of one Asiatic people dominating"
another have not been greater than those of the exploitation
or "government of one people b}- another'' in Europe.

11. That in ancient and mediaeval times the nations
of Asia have had knowledge about one another as much as
or as little as the nations of Europe about themselves.

12. That the ignoratice of Europeans regarding the
Asiatics in ancient and mediaeval times has been, to say
the least, as profound as that of the Asiatics regarding the
Europeans.

13. That 'splendid isolation' was equally true of both
Asiatics and Europeans.

14. Hatred of foreigners was as powerful in the West
as in the East; such terms as "barbarians," "heathens,"
"infidels," "^ile Turk," "nigger," etc., are found in
non-oriental languages.

15. Besides, the morals and manners of tlie Court of
Peking have been out-Pekinged in lands other than Cathay.
Thus ]\Iacaula}- speaks of court-life in England under the
Stuarts with his characteristic eloquence in his Jissav on
Milton :

Then came those days never to be recalled without a
blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality
without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the
paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of
the coward, the bigot and the slave. The King cringed to

COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGY & COMPARATIVE HISTORY 171

his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a
viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy,
her degrading insult, and her more degrading gold. The
caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the
policy of the state. The Government had just ability enough
to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The
principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning coiirtier,
and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In
every high place, worship was paid to Charles and James,
Belial and Moloch, and England propitiated those obscene
and cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest
children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to
disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man was a
second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the
earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to
the nations."

It is necessary to bear this skeleton of Comparative
History in mind while noticing the anarchy and political
chaos in China during the four hundred years between Han
and Tang dynasties. The strength and weakness exhibited
by Chinese humanity during the several millenniums have
been those of every other race of mankind. If the historical
geography of China were studied on the lines of Freeman' s
Historical Geography of Europe^ it would be quite clear
that generation by generation, and area for area, the
political fortunes of the Far Eastern nation as well as of the
Western peoples have advanced in nearly the self-same way.
There is nothing abnormal in the race-characteristics of the
Chinese, and nothing exceptional need be assumed while
studying their religion and culture.

This period of anarchy is, however, very important to
students of Chinese religion. It was during those troublous

172 CHINESE RELIGION

times that Buddhism, Confucianism and Laotszeism
(Taoism), as cults of avaiaras or personal deities in which
form we know them to-day, took their final shape.

Section 2.
Chinese Religious Development.

For a long time after the formal introduction of Buddha-
cult among the Chinese, ' ' things Indian ' ' remained mere
curios to their " upper ten thousand. " India was to them
no more than what she was to Europe in the days of Goethe
when Sakuntala was first translated into a western language,
or what Japan was to the Occidental world prior to the
event of 1905 or of 1895, or what China is to-day to all
outsiders. A real Hindu movement was a long-delayed
phenomenon in the Celestial Empire. " Vini^ Vidi, Via "
is not the verdict about Indianism in China in spite of the
Indian element in her character.

For the Chinese, like every other people, had begun
to bring out their own /a/'c/^a-stories or incarnation-myths
regarding their ancient sages. They were not in need of
much foreign help in the direction to which their mentality
led them independently. The accovint given of Laotsze in
Taoist works is, according to Davis in Chinese (ii, 115-16)
' ' that he was an incarnation of some superior being, and
that there is no age in which he does not come forth among
men in human shape. They tell the various names under
which he appeared from the highest period of fabulous
antiquity down as late as the sixth century, making in all
seven periods. ' '

Mr. Werner gives an extract from the Transactions of
the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Pt. V.,
pp. 83-98) in which we read of the Taoist "mode of self-

CHINESE REIylGIOUS DEVELOPMENT 173

training called liau-yang,'*'' the analogue of Hindu Yoga.
" This method consisted of a hermit life, and sitting cross-
legged in a mountain cave, and trying to hold the breath.
* * * By continuing this process sufl&ciently long, the
soul will at length become superior to the body, rise up out
of it by its own power, ascend to heaven, and become one
of the celestial genii."

The use of charms, amulets, etc., is mentioned by
sinologues in connexion with Taoism of this period, as
evidently there were other forms of folk-religion, also. The
discovery of the "Elixir of Life," "philosopher's stone" and
all other phenomena connected with alchemy is also traced to
Taoism of this and previous ages. ' 'Chin-Shi-Hwangti sent
a party to look for the Elixir of Life in B.C. 219. Among
mineral substances cinnabar was considered likely to yield
it." "The Taoists call the process of manipulating sub-
stances to obtain the elixir Liau-wai-tan^ 'the obtaining by
purification of the external elixir. ' " " Alchemy was studied
in China for two centuries B.C. and therefore earlier than
in the West." This would remind the Hindu of his
lantras and Nagarjuna, the Mahayanist Doctor of Tantric
philosophy.

Laotsze was fast approaching deification. The follow-
ing is taken from Watters' Lao-Tzu. "From the time of
the Chin (A.D. 265-478) and Liang (A.D. 402-557)
Dynasties down to the Great T'ang dynasty his doctrine and
his name were glorified. He was promoted to be a God,
and wonderful things were invented about him, and the
Tao of which he spoke so much."

It seems that Taoist Papacy was instituted before Lao-
tsze had received a place in the pantheon. Watters gives
the following account : ' ' The first of the Taoist patriarchs

174 CHINESE RELIGION

ia China was Chang Tao-Hng, who lived in the time of the
Han dynasty. Lao-tsze appeared to him in the Stork-cry
Hill and told him that in order to attain the state of
immortality which he was seeking he must subdue a number
of demons. Tao-ling in his eagerness slew too many, and
Laotszu told him that Shangti required him to do penance
for a time. Finally, however, he was allowed to become an
immortal, and the spiritual chief dom of the Taoists was
given to his family for ever. ' '

Giles gives the following stages in the process of deifica-
tion through which Confucius passed. "In A.D. 178 a like-
ness of Confucius had been placed in his shrine as a substitute
for the wooden tablet in use up to that date. * * * There
is no doubt that the shrine played an important part in
keeping alive the Confucian tradition. So far back as A.D.
267, an Bmperor decreed that the sacrifice of a pig, sheep,
and an ox should be offered to Confucius at each of the
four seasons. Rules were drawn up about A.D. 430 for
regulating the ceremonies to be performed. Gradually, the
people came to look upon Confucius as a god to be pro-
pitiated for the sake of worldly advantages ; and in A.D. 472
it became necessary to issue an edict forbidding women to
frequent the shrine for the purpose of praying for children.
About A.D. 555 it was enacted that a Confucian temple
should be built in every prefectural city in the empire.
* * * Some of the ancient sages who were admitted to
share in the honors accorded to their master, appear in the
shape of wooden figures; the portraits of others were painted
on the walls. In the year 960 the wooden figures were
abolished, and clay images were substituted. "

CONFUCIANISM, BUDDHISM 175

It would appear that the idea of personal gods, avatar as
or Messiahs, to be worshipped in their icons had been grow-
ing independently in Hindnsthau, Iran, Israel and China.
The following seems to be the chronological order in the
history of world's modern deities : —

1. Shiva-cult, Rama-cult, Vishnu-cult (Krishna-cult).

2. Buddha-cult, Mahavira-cult.

3. Mithraism, Christology, Mariolatry,

4. Ivaotsze-cult.

5 . Conf uciu s-cult.

The mentality expressed in each cult is the same, there
are slight differences only in the technique and external
paraphernalia.

Section 3.

"Confucianism," "Buddhism," "Buddhist India,"
"Buddhist China."

The term " Confucianism, " as the name of a religion,
like the names of other great religions, Hinduism, Chris-
tianity, etc., is ambiguous and very elastic.

(1) The Cult of the World-Forces that has been
existing in China from time immemorial has been miscalled
Confucianism, simply because Confucius the librarian at
lyOO happened to compile, or edit, or even lend his name to
the collection of, the Ancient Classics in which that cult
finds expression. In this sense Confucianism had existed
in China before Confucius was born. As Hirth puts it,
thus considered, the whole history of China becomes a
tale of ' ' retrospective Confucianism. ' '

176 CIIINRSIi; RRIvKWON

(2) Confucianism may mean a study of the Ancient
Classics alleged to have been edited by Confucius, the
Fyasa or Pisistratus of China, and also the worship of the
same Deities as have been adored by the Celestial people
throughout the ages.

(3) Confucianism is sometimes wrongly taken to be
equivalent to positivism. The sayings of Confucius as
moralist which we get in the Aiialccls^ and the Dociriiic
of tJie Mean, have no reference to the supernatural, the
unseen or the other world, and are supposed to convey the
zvhok message of his life. Bvit as we have indicated in a
previous chapter, they are really /^arts of a system which
embraces the entire classical literature, and is, therefore, as
theistic as that of the pre-Confucian Chinese.

(4) Confucianism has become the worship of Confucius
as a god since about the 5th century A.D.. This
Confucius-cult is exactly like the Shangti-cult, Heaven-
cult, Tai-cult, etc., of the Chinese, and the Varuna-cult,
Indra-cult, Vishnu-cult, liuddha-cult, etc., of the Plindus,
a cult of Nature-Force. This has, therefore, to be regarded
as distinct from (3), tlie so-called Positivism of the Chinese
supposed to have been taught by Confucius the nujralist,
(2), the study of the classics, etc., associated with the name
of Confucius as editor, and (1), the Ancient Chinese
Religion. Rather it should be regarded as a branch of (1),
because Confucius is a god among gods.

It may be remarked, in passing, that the trend of the
foregoing pages has been to indicate that Confucianism
taken in any sense is easily comprehensible to the Hindu
mind.

CONFUCIANISM, BUDDHISM 177

Likewise, the term ' Buddhism ' also is ambiguous.
It may mean at least two things: (1) the religion that was
founded by a man named Buddha, (2) the religion which
recognises Buddha as a or the god in its pantheon. This
ambiguity is shared with it by the term ' Christianity ' as
we have seen in the preceding chapter.

Now in India no religion has been named after its
founder. It is the custom to designate religions according
to the cult. In that case, if the teachings of the historic
person Sakyasimha, sumamed the Buddha, may be consider-
ed as constituting a religion, it should be called Nirvanism
or Cessation-of-Misery-ism after its most prominent metaphy-
sical tenet. The current term Hinayanism is quite good.

Buddhism in its second meaning has practically no or
very indirect connexion with this Ntivamsm, though evolved
out of it. It is a cult like Shaivaism with Shiva as the
principal god, or Vaishnavism with Vishnu as the principal
god, or Sh&ktaism with Shakti as the principal goddess, or
Saurais-m with Suryya, the Sun, as the principal god, etc..
Buddha here is on a par with the elemental forces of the
universe. Fire, Air, Water, Sky, etc., named Agni, Indra,
Varuna, Dyaus, etc., in Vedic literature, or Brahma,
Vishnu, Shiva, etc., the descendants of Vedic deities.

It is necessary to bear this distinction always in mind
because Sakyasimha the founder of Nirvdmsm (the philo-
sophy of twelve Nidanas* and eight-fold path) did not and
naturally could not claim the rank of a god or a son of God
or even a prophet. Buddhism or the cult of Buddha- worship
therefore should not be fathered upon Sakyasimha, This
Buddhism, called also Mahayanism^ is like every other ism
in India not the making of a single brain or character, but

• Links between Ignorance and Birth.

178 CHINESE RELIGION

is' the outcome of communal religious consciousness, tlie
embodiment of a collective race-ideal. It is tte growth of
generations and sums up the accumulated spiritual ex-
perience of ages.

What, then, does the term Buddhist India mean? It
should mean (1) Nirvanist India, and (2) India in which
Buddha-cuit has been supreme. But either way it is a
misnomer. There has been no period of Indian history in
which Sakyasimha's Ntrvdnisttc teachings had exclusive
sway over the mind of the people. There were other sources
of inspiration to Indian humanity both in Sakyasimha's time
as well as before and after. There was the Upanishad-
India, there was the Darsana-\ri^\'&^ there was the Folk-
India, there was the Mahavira-\\A\.z.^ there were probably
the Mahabhdrata-\vL^va. and Ramdyana-'hi'^\z. too, and there
were many other Indias at the same time. No chapter of
Indian history can be called after Sakyasimha, or Niivanism,
if that be his exclusive patent.

Secondly, if we take Buddhism in the second sense,
here also we can never speak of a Buddhist India. Because
when Buddha had a place in the pantheon, he was only a
god among the gods worshipped by the people of Hindus-
than. Besides, just as the metaphysics of NirvanisM vi&s
not Sakya's original discovery, so also the metaphysics of
Buddhism was not the patent of any sect. If any chapter of
Indian history is to be named after the gods worshipped by the
people or the metaphysical systems they embody, BrahfnS,
Vishnu, Shiva, T^rS, Krishna, Rama, Parswanatha and
a thousand others have equal claim with Buddha.

But Rhys Davids has used the term Buddhist India
in such a way as leaves the wrong impression that for
certain consecutive periods of Indian history the religion

CONFUCIANISM, BUDDHISM 179

founded by Sakyasimha as well as the religion of Buddha-
cult monopolised the faith of the people and probably eclipsed
all their secular and materialistic activities. If by Buddhist
India he meant all those epochs of Indian history in which
Buddhism in any sense has existed and all those peoples of
India, past or present, who have professed Buddhism in any
shape, there would have been no misunderstanding. Mr.
Johnston, for example, in his Buddhist Ching,, has done
exactly what is being suggested here. Readers of Johnston's
work get an idea of what Buddhism is and has been, as
taught and professed by the Celestial People. They are
never misled to believe that there is a Buddhist epoch of
Chinese history. But readers of Buddhist India by a
greatest student of Indian Buddhism have been thus misled
for a long time.

In fact, the whole division of Indian history into the
so-called epochs has up till now been thoroughly misleading.
It has been the fashion to name the chapters after a race or
a religion. If this were the fashion with students of
European history, they would have to describe some of
their epochs as those of Mahometan Europe, Turkish Europe,
Tartar Europe, and so forth. Students of Indian history
should have to proceed to their work with the object of
elucidating the operation of forces, both national as well as
international, and secular as well as non-secular, that have
contributed to the building up of a varied and complex
civilisation. Sometimes the most prominent culture-force is
probably race-mixture, at other times it is probably .an in-
tellectual upheaval. And it may often be difficult to get a
convenient word for defining all the activities throughout
India. The work, therefore, has to be commenced in the

180 CHINESE RELIGION

spirit of a Guizot or a John Richard Green. Vincent Smith
may be said to have given a thousand years'- chronological
scaffolding. Much spade-work yet remains to be done before
India can be presented in an understandable form.

Section 4.
The Pioneers of Asiatic Unity.

The fortunes of Buddhism during the period of so-called
anarchy in China may be thus described in the words of
Hackmann :

"The most striking fact, to which too little notice has
so far been given, is that it was not till the beginning of the
fourth century A.D. that the Chinese were allowed to
become monks in the Buddhist religion. The authorised
representatives, therefore, of the new religion were foreigners
during the first two and a half centuries. A roll of names
©f foreigners has been handed down to us who came from
India, from the Himalayan states, and from Central Asia,
to take charge of Buddhism in China. For a long time
their most important labours consisted in translations of the
books of the Buddhist Canon. * * * Till about A.D.
300 the translators were all foreigners (with the exception
of one Chinese layman)."

The following is taken from Giles : "It was not until
A.D. 335 that the Chinese people were allowed to take
Buddhist orders. This permission was due to the influence
of a remarkable Indian priest, named Budhachinga, who
reached the capital in A.D. 310. * * * Buddhism now
began to take a firm hold ; and under the year 381 we read
of a special temple built for priests within the Imperial
palace. A further great impetus to the spread of this

THE PIONEERS OP ASIATIC UNITY 181

religiou was given by tlie arrival, about tbe year 385, of
Kumarajiva. * * * jjg laboured for many years as a
translator, dying in 417. * * * The work by wbicb he
is best known * * * j^g ^^^ translation of what is called
Tke Diamond Sutra * * * wbicb teaches that all
objects, all phenomena are illusory, and have no real
existence, * * * seems to show that faith in Buddha
through the Buddhist scriptures can also make a man ' wise
unto salvation. ' * * * While Kumarajiva was spread-
ing the faith in China, and dictating commentaries on the
sacred books of Buddhism to some eight hundred priests, the
famous traveller, Fa Hien, was engaged upon his ad-
venturous journey. "

The heroic idealism as well as lofty spirituality which
inspired Fa Hien in his arduous journey (A.D. 399-413)
were characteristics of the Chinese converts of the day.
The following is taken from Legge's translation of Fa-
Hien's Travels: " That I encountered danger and trod the
most perilous places, without thinking of, or sparing myself,
was because I had a definite aim, and thought of nothing
but to do my best in my simplicity and straightforwardness.
Thus it was that I exposed my life where death seemed
inevitable, if I might accomplish but a ten thousandth part
of what I hoped. ' '

Fa Hien's noble personality can be understood also
from the following account of Giles : ' ' He brought with
him a large number of books and sacred relics, all of which
he nearly lost in the Bay of Bengal. There was a violent
gale, and the ship sprang a leak. As he tells us in his own
account of the journey, 'he took his pitcher and ewer, with
whatever else he could spare, and threw them into the sea;
but he was afraid that the merchants on board would throw

182 CHINESE REI/IGION

over liis books and images, and accordingly he fixed his
whole thoughts upon Kuan-shih-yin or Kuan Yin, the
Hearer of the Prayers of the World, and prayed to the
sainted priests of his own country, saying, 'Oh that by your
awful prayer you would turn back the flow of the leak and
grant us to reach some resting place ! ' "

These are the words of a real bhakta or lover, be he
a Shaiva, a Vaishnava, a Ramaite, a Jaina, or a Buddhist.
The Religion of Love and Faith was established in China by
genuine Romanticists and self-abnegating devotees of the
Fa Hien-type.

With Kumdrajiva and Fa Hien, i.e.^ towards the begin-
ning of the 5th century, we enter a new era of Indo-
Chinese relationships. It marks the beginning of an in-
timate cultural and spiritual union between the two peoples,
which, backed by equally deep commercial and political
intercourse, has given rise to that composite crystal of
human thought known as Asiatic Culture. The land of
Sakyasimha and the land of Confucius met at last in a real
' 'Holy Alliance. ' ' For the next thousand years {i.e. down to
about A,D. 1453, the year of the capture of Constantinople
by the Turks), the life and activity of human beings from
Kyoto to Cairo were governed by one Asiatic science, art
and philosophy. This, carried to Europe by Arab inter-
mediaries, became also the foster-mother of that Renaissance,
the ultimate results of which we have been witnessing in
the world since 1815. That chapter of world's mediaeval
history has yet to be written.

Hindu culture in general, and Buddha-cult in particular,
may now be said to have come to stay in China. Indianism
was no longer a mere "interest" of curio-hunters and
faddists, but on the fair way to be a permanent factor in

THE PIONEERS OF ASIATIC UNITY 183

Chinese civilisation. According to Hackmann, "perhaps
the renown attained by the Chinese Buddhism of that period
is best demonstrated by the striking event that in the year
A.D. 526 the patriarch of Indian Buddhism, Bodhidharma,
the tu^enty-eighth in the list of the Buddha's successors, left
his native land and migrated to China, which thence-
forward became the seat of the patriarchate."

It is now desirable to get a picture of Indian culture
and religion, the fountain-head of the Asiatic life-stream, at
the beginning of this momentous epoch in world's history.
To this task I shall now address myself.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Beginning of Hindu Culture as
World-Power

(A.D. 300-600)

Section 1.

Indian Napoleon's Alexandrian March.

We noticed in a previous chapter that, if we exclude the
Assyrian, Egyptian and Persian Monarchies of ancient
times, the Maurya Empire of the Hindus (B.C. 32 1-B.C. 185)
was, chronologically speaking, the first Empire in world's
history, and that, internationally speaking, it occupied the
first rank in the contemporary state-system. We have now
arrived at a stage in world's history when another Hindu
Empire became similarly the very First Power of the world.
This was the celebrated Empire of the Guptas (A.D.
320-606). There was now " anarchy" (?) in China. With
the incursions of Barbarians into the Roman Empire, Europe
was immersed in her " Dark Ages. " The Saracenic Caliphate
of the followers of Islam was not yet come. It was the people
of Hindusthan who enjoyed the real "place in the sun."

"While noticing the military and political achievements
of Samudragupta (A.D. 335-375), one of the Emperors of
this House, Mr. Vincent Smith — to whom Indologists owe
the only ' ' chronological narrative of the political vicissitudes
of the land'' — makes the following remarks :

"Whatever may have been the exact degree of skill
attained by Samudragupta in the practice of the arts which
graced his scanty leisure, it is clear that he was endowed

INDIAN NAPOLEON 185

with, no ordinary powers ; and that lie was in fact a man of
genius, who may fairly claim the title of the Indian
Napoleon. * * *

By a strange irony of fate this great king — warrior, poet,
and musician — who conquered nearly all India, and whose
alliances extended from the Oxus to Celyon — was unknown
even by name to the historians until the publication* of this
work. His lost fame has been slowly recovered by the
minute and laborious study of inscriptions and coins during
the last eighty years. "

It may be mentioned, in passing, that monarchs of the
Samudragupta-type, who may be compared easily with a
Charlemagne, a Frederick or a Peter the Great, have
flourished in India almost every second generation. Hindu
folk-lore has known them as Vikramadityas (Sun of Power)
and has invested their names with the halo of Arthurian
romance.

It is unnecessary to wait long over the political achieve-
ments of the Gupta Emperors. The Digvijaya or 'Conquest
of the Quarters' made by Samudragupta fired the imagination
of a contemporary poet, Kalidasa, the Goethe or Shakespeare
of Sanskrit literature. The following are some of the verses
from Canto IV of his immortal epic, Raghu-vamsam (" The
House of Raghu"), translated by Griffith for his Idylls from
the Sanskrit^ which describe the triumphal progress of his
hero Raghu :

* ' Fortune herself, sweet Goddess, all unseen.

Held o'er his sacred head her lotus screen.

And Poesy in minstrels' form stood by,

Swept the wild string, and raised his triumph high.

* First Edition, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1905.

186 CHINESE RELIGION

What thougli the earth, since ancient Mann's reign,
Was wooed by every king, nor wooed in vain ;
She came a bride, with fresh unrifled charms,
A pure young virgin, to her Raghu's arms.
* * *

Scarce was he ready for the sword and shield
When autumn called him to the battlefield, —
War's proper season, when the rains are o'er.
When roads are dry, and torrents foam no more.
Soon as the day to bless the chargers came,
The warrior's holy festival, the flame
Turned to the right, and with a ruddy hand
Gave him full triumph o' er each distant land.
Then when his Kingdom was secured, and all
His city fortified with tower and wall.
His hosts he marshalled, his broad flag outspread.
And to subdue the world his army led.
Forth as he rode, the city matrons poured
The sacred grain upon their mighty lord.
^ ^ H=

First to the East the hero takes his way.
His foemen trembling as his banners play.
Thick clouds of dust beneath his chariots rise,
Till dark as earth appear the changing skies ;

'P 'K *¥*

He marked his progress with a mighty hand ;
The fountain gushed amid the thirsty sand ;
The tangled forest harboured beasts no more,
And foaming floods the freighted vessel bore.

INDIAN NAPOLEON 187

Through all the Kast he passed, from land to land,
And reached triumphant, Ocean's palmy strand.
Like an unsparing torrent on he went,
And low, like reeds, the lords of Suhma bent.
Then fell the islets washed by Ganga's wave.
Nor could their ships, the hosts of Banga save.

* * *

No wealth he sought, but warred in honour's name.
So spared his land but spoiled his warlike fame.

* * *

But louder, as the war-steeds paced along.
Rattled the harness of the mail-clad throng.

* * *

True to the Law thus Raghu marched by land

To Pirasika with his conquering band.

He saw, indignant, to the lotus eyes

Of Yavana dames the wine-cup's frenzy rise.

* * *

Mad was the onset of the western horse.
And wild the fury of the conqueror's force ;
No warrior saw — so thick the dust — his foe,
But marked him by the twanging of his bow.
Then Raghu's archers shot their keen shafts well ;
The bearded head of many a soldier fell,
And covered closely all the battle-ground
Like heaps of honey that the bees surround.

* * *

Pale grew the cheek of every Huna dame,
Trembling in wild alarm at Raghu's name.

188 CHINESE REI/IGION

By him subdued, they forced their pride to bring
Coursers and gold as gifts to Kosal's King.
Borne by these steeds he climbed Himalayas hill,
Whose crest now clothed with dust rose loftier still.

* * *

Fierce was the battle with the mountaineers

Armed with their bows and arrows, stones and spears,

The thick sparks flying as they met. Then ceased,

Slain by his arrows, from the mirth and feast

The mountain revellers, and minstrel bands.

That walked as demi-gods those lofty lands.

Were taught the hero's victories to sing,

And each hill tribe brought tribute to the King.

* * *

Thus when all princes owned the conqueror's sway.
He turned his chariot on his homeward way,
Letting the dust, beneath his wheels that rose,
Fall on the diadems of humbled foes."

It was the atmosphere of this poetry which nurtured
the nation of Kumarajivas. Fa-Hien and Kalidasa were
contemporaries, and if the Chinese traveller had cared to
know some of the prominent Hindus of his time, the first
man to be introduced to him would have been Kalidasa.
But it seems from Fa-Hien 's diary that he had not much
leisure to go beyond his special mission. However, it was the
Indianism of Kalidasa' s age with which the Chinese Apostle
came in contact. It was this Hindu Culture which
was propagated in China and finally transmitted to Japan to
build up her Bushido and Yamato Damashii. Buddha-cult
was introduced into Korea from China in A.D. 2>12^ and
from Korea into the Land of the Rising Sun in A.D. 552.

* ' world-sense ' ' and colonising enterprise 189

Section 2.

"World-sense" and Colonising enterprise.

The Hindus of tlie fourth, fifth and sixth centuries
were not living in "splendid isolation," as it has been
the fashion to suppose that the Asiatics have ever done.
As in previous ages, so under the Guptas they kept up
cultivating the ' ' world-sense. ' '

In the first place, it must be remembered that 'ndia alone
is a world by herself — the whole of Europe minus Russia.
Therefore, for the Hindus to be able to develop the "India-
sense ' ' in pre-Steam days must be regarded as an expression
of internationalism of high order. Considered territorially,
and also in terms of population, the world-sense of the
Roman Emperors was not greater than that of the Hindu
Imperialists.

The internationalism of the Hindus was extra- Indian
too. It is well-known that the world of Kalidasa's poetry
includes the whole of India and also the Indian borderland
and Persia. The fact that with the fifth century is augmented
the stream of trafl&c between India and China both by land
and sea is itself an indication of the " Asia-sense " they had
been developing. It may be said that the Mauryas had
cultivated mainly the relations with West- Asia, the Kushans
had opened up the Central-Asian regions, and the Guptas
developed the Far Eastern intercourse. The Hindus could
now think not only in "terms of India but of entire Asia.

The larger world beyond Asia was also to a certain
extent within the purview of the Hindus. Ever since
Alexander's opening up of the West-Asian route, the
Hindus had kept touch with the "barbarians." About the

190 CHINBSB RBLIGION

first century A.D. Hindu trade witli the Roman Empire
was not a negligible item of international commerce. The
Periplus of the Erythrcsan Sea {c A.D. 100) is a document
of that Indo-Roman Intercourse. Both the Kushans in the
North and the Andhra Monarchs in the South were in-
terested in Rome.

In the Imperial Gazetteer of India {India^ Vol. II.)
Sewell describes the foreign trade of the Hindus under the
South Indian Andhras (B.C. 200- A.D. 250): "The
Andhra period seems to have been one of considerable
prosperity. There was trade both overland and by sea,
with Western Asia, Greece, Rome, and Egypt, as well as
with China and the East. Embassies are said to have been
sent from South India to Rome. Indian elephants were
used for Syrian warfare. Pliny mentions the vast quantities
of specie that found its way every year from Rome to India
and in this he is confirmed by the author of the Periplus.
Roman coins have been found in profusion in the peninsula,
and especially in the south. In A.D. 68 a number of Jews,
fleeing from Roman persecution, seem to have taken refuge
among the friendly coast people of South India and to have
settled in Malabar."

The following picture of foreign settlements in Southern
India is given by Vincent Smith : "There is good reason
to believe that considerable colonies of Roman subjects
engaged in trade were settled in Southern India during the
first two centuries of our era, and that European soldiers, de-
scribed as powerful Yavanas, dumb Mlechchas (barbarians),
clad in complete armour, acted as body-guards to Tamil
kings. ' '

"world-sense" and colonising enterprise 191

According to the same authority Chandragupta II.
Vikramaditya (A.D. 375-413) of the Gupta dynasty was "in
direct touch with the sea-borne commerce with Kurope
through Egypt. ' '

Besides, intercourse with Further India and the colonisa-
tion of Java form parts of an adventure which in Gupta times
was nearing completion. In fact, with the fourth century
A.D. really commences the foundation of a "Greater
India " of commerce and culture, extending ultimately from
Japan on the East to Madagascar on the West. The romantic
story of this Expansion of India has found its proper place
in Mookerji's History of Indian Shipping and Maritime
Activity from the Earliest Times. The heroic pioneers of
that undertaking were all embodiments of the world-sense.

It would thus appear that the travels of Kumarajiva the
Hindu Missionary (A. D. 405) and of Fa Hien the Celestial
Apostle -were facts of a nature to which the Indians had long
been used. The Chinese monks came to a land through which
the current of world-life regularly flowed. Hindusthan had
never been shunted off from the main-track of universal
culture. To come to India in the age of the Guptas was to
imbibe the internationalism of the atmosphere.

Regarding the Indo-Chinese intercourse of this age the
following extracts from The Epochs of Chinese and Japanese
Art are interesting :

"Of what took place in the Tartar regions of the north
we know little, since their dynasties have not been re-
cognised by Chinese historians as legitimate. The true
Celestial annals, indeed the lore of Chinese genius, belong
at this time to the stimulus afforded by the new southern
conditions. The new capital, near the present Nanking, was

192 CHINESE RELIGION

on the great Yangtse. * * * The Southern seats of
the Chinese were in closer proximity to a new part of India,
the south through Burma, or along the opening lines of
coast trade. * * * j^ ^^^g jjgj-e too, in the Southern
Chinese nests, that Buddhism could drop her most fertile
germs. ' '

It may be mentioned that the patriarch Bodhidharma,
originally a South Indian Prince, reached Canton by sea and
was then invited to Nanking (A. D. 520).

The above is a picture of the sea-traffic. References
to this are to be found in the Kwai-Yuen Catalogue (A. D.
730) of the Chinese THpitaka which has been drawn upon by
Prof. Anesaki for his paper in the J.R.A.S. (April, 1903).

It must not be forgotten, besides, that Kucha and
Khotan, thehalfwayhousebetweenlndiaand China, remained
all this while the great emporium of Hindu culture and
Graeko-Buddhist art. Manuscripts, unearthed by Stein
and others, both in Kharoshthi and Chinese Scripts, prove
that Central Asian Indianism flourished during the period
from 3rd century A.D. to 8th or 9th. And it was the
Central Asian land-route which was traversed by Fa Hien
in A.D. 399 and later by Hiuen Thsang in A.D. 629 on
their way to India, from which both returned home by sea.

Section 3.

A Melting-pot of Races.

(fl) The Capacity for Assimilation.

The New Worlders of the United States take a great
delight in describing their country as the 'melting-pot of
races.' Similarly the statesmen and scholars in the Land of
the Rising Sun have been giving out to the world during

THE CAPACITY FOR ASSIMILATION 193

the last decade or so, that an extraordinary ' capacity for
assimilation ' is the characteristic of the Yamato race.
Anthropologically speaking, the two claims are one and the
same ; and historically considered, the Japanese or American
characteristic is not the exclusive feature of any race, but
has been exhibited in the life of every race of human
beings, and may be traced ultimately to the elemental
instinct of self-preservation.

The ancient Chaldasans and Mycaneans could claim the
same characteristic, as well as the Aztecs of Mexico and the
Maories of New Zealand. Every inch of soil on the Old
World from Korea to Ulster has been as great a melting-
pot of races as any of the States in the New World. And
the race-psychology of the Tartar, the Jew, the Briton, the
Pole, the Hindu, the Pathan, the Chinese, the Bulgar, and
the Slav displays the same assimilative capacity for utilising
new conditions and thus growing by adaptation as that of
the Far Eastern people.

In the following picture of "England under foreign
rule " (1013-1204) given by Green in his Short History of
the English People we see at once the American melting-pot
and the Japanese assimilation :

' ' Britain had become England in the five hundred
years that followed the landing of Hengest, and its conquest
had ended in the settlement of its conquerors. * * *
But whatever titles kings might assume, or however im-
posing their rule might appear, Northumbrian remained
apart from West Saxon, Dane from Englishman. * * *

Through the two hundred years that lie between the
flight of ^thelred from England to Normandy and that of
John from Normandy to England our story is a story of

194 chinbsb; rbwgion

foreign rule. Kings from Denmark were succeeded by
kings from Normandy, and these by kings from Anjou.
Under Dane, Norman, or Angevin, Englisbmen were a
subject race, conquered and ruled by foreign masters ; and
yet it was in these years of subjection that Bngland first
became really Kngland. * * * The Bnglish lords them-
selves sank into a middle class as they were pushed from
their place by the foreign baronage who settled on English
soil ; and this change was accompanied by a gradual elevation
of the class of servile and semi-servile cultivators who
gradually lifted themselves into almost complete freedom. The
middle class which was thus created was reinforced by the
up-growth of a corresponding class in our towns. * * *

At the same time the close connexion with the continent
which foreign conquest brought about secured for England
a new communion with the artistic and intellectual life of
the world without her. The old mental stagnation was
broken up, and art and literature covered England with
great buildings and busy schools. * * *

Dane and Norwegian were traders over a yet wider field
than the northern seas ; their barks entered the Mediter-
ranean, while the overland route through Russia brought
the wares of Constantinople and the East. * * * Men
from Rhineland and Normandy, too, moored their vessels
along the Thames. * * * "

Further, " At the accession of Henry's grandson it was
impossible to distinguish between the descendants of the
conquerors and those of the conquered at Senlac. We can
dimly trace the progress of this blending of the two races in
the case of the burgher population in the towns. ' '

Also, "It is in William (of Malmesbury) above all
others that we see the new tendency of English literature.

TARTARISATION OF ARYANISED DRAVIDIANS 195

In himself as in his work, he marks the fusion of the
conquerors and the conquered, for he was of both Bnglish
and Norman parentage, and his sympathies were as divided
as his blood. The form and style of his writings show the
influence of those classical studies which were now reviving
throughout Christendom."

Bvery country presents the story of this fusion of races,
and blood -intermixture, and India is no exception. The
purity of blood or race-type claimed by the Hindus is, in
fact, a myth. It was certainly out of the question during
the period of the Guptas which was preceded as well as
followed by the military, political and economic settlements
■of Central Asian hordes in various parts of India.

(d) Tartarisation of Aryanised Dravidians.

Taking a vertical view of history, the following im-
portant race-elements must have contributed to the web of
Hindu physico-social life of the Vikramadityan era :

1. The Aborigines (pre-Aryans or so-called Dravi-
dians) should be regarded as j,the basic factor in Indian
humanity both in the North and in the South. The
Maratha race is Scytho-Dravidian ethnologically, and
Mardtha scholars point out the non-Aryan or pre-Aryan
strain in the Hindu characteristics of Western India. Pre-
sident Sastri of Bangiya Sahitya Parishat of Calcutta in
his recent essays has been testifying to the predominance of
primitive non- Aryan influences on Bengal's life and thought.
As for South India, the following remarks of Prof. Pillai
quoted in the Tamilian Antiquary (No 2, 1908) are emi-
nently suggestive :

"The attempt to find the basic element of Hindu
civilisation by a study of Sanskrit and the history of Sanskrit

195 CHINESE RELIGION

in Upper India is to begin tlie problem at its worst and
most complicated point. India South of the Vindbyas — still
continues to be India proper. Here the bulk of the people
continue distinctly to retain their pre- Aryan features, their
pre-Aryan languages, their pre-Aryan social institutions.
Even here the process of Aryanisation has gone too far to
leave it easy for the historian to distinguish the native warp
from the foreign woof."

The blending of aboriginal races with newcomers has
to be recognised through all the ages of Indian history. It
was not finished in the prehistoric epoch of Aryan Settle-
ments, but is going on even now. The Himalayan tribes
and the races inhabiting the forests and hills of the whole
peninsula have always contributed their quota to the making
of the Hindu population. Thus among the so-called Rajput
clans some are descended from the foreign Sakas and Huns,
while others have risen from the native pre-Aryan races.
According to Vincent Smith, "various indigenous or abori-
ginal tribes and clans underwent the same process of Hin-
duised social promotion, in virtue of which Gonds, Bhars,
Kharwdrs, and so forth, emerged as Chandels, Rathors,
Gaharwars, and other well-known Rajput clans, duly
equipped with pedigrees reaching back to the sun and the
moon.' '

2. Aryanisation must be regarded as the second factor
in this composite structure. It is this by which the Hindus
become one with the Iranians of Persia and Grseko-Romans
and Teutons of Europe. Aryanisation has promoted in
India a ' ' fundamental unity " of cultural ideals, but must not
be assumed to have effected any thoroughgoing transforma-
tion of race. The blending of the Aryan and non-Aryan has

TARTARISATION OF ARYANISED DRAVIDIANS 197

proceeded in varying degrees in different places; and the
civilisation bears marks of tlie different degrees of fusion.
Scientifically speaking, the term ' Aryan ' implies a certain
culture of peoples speaking a certain language, it cannot
refer to certain blood-strains or physical characteristics
involved in the use of tlie word 'race.' The Aryanisation
of India, as of other countries of the world, should, therefore,
indicate the super-imposition of a new language, new re-
.ligious conceptions, new domestic and social institutions,
and a new polity upon those of the pre- Aryan settlers.

3. Persianisation or Iranisation, and, along with it,
older Assyrian or Mesopotamian traces, need be noticed in
the early civilisation of Aryanised India. Prof. Rapson
in his primer. Ancient India, has dealt with the political
relations between Persians and Indians in the sixth and
fifth centuries B.C. . Here, again, the influence may be more
cultural than racial. Prof. Fenollosa suggests Mesopotamian
influence upon Chinese Art of the Han dynasty (B.C. 202-
221 A.D.), especially in the animal-motives. This may be
suggested about India too, as has been done by Griinwedel
in his Buddhist Art. Vincent Smith also remarks : ' ' The
little touches of foreign manners in the court and institutions
of Chandragupta * * * are Persian j * * * and the
Persian title of Satrap continued to be used by Indian pro-
vincial governors for ages down to the close of the fourth
century."

The Persian influence on Maurya India has been de-
scribed in the Indian Antiquary (1905). Mr, Smith thinks
that some features of Maurya administration ' ' may have
been borrowed from Persia ; " and hazards the conjecture

198 CHINESE RELIGION

fnat the Persianising of the Kushan coinage of Northern
India should be explained by the occurrence of an unrecord-
ed Persian invasion in the 3rd century A.D..

4. Yavanisation or Hellenisation was effected both in
blood and culture. Chandragupta himself had set the ex-
ample of Indo-Greek matrimonial relations. The Hellenistic
Legation-quarter, at Pataliputra (modem Patna), under
Megasthenes, Asoka's propagandism in the Hellenistic
Kingdoms of Western Asia and Egypt, Kushan patronage
of Graeko-Roman artists, the establishment of Roman colon-
ies in parts of Southern India as well as the contact of the
Hindus with Grseko-Bactrians and Grasko-Parthians as
enemies on various occasions, suggest more or less inter-racial
as well as inter-cultural fusion. It is diflEcult to prove,
however, as has been stated in a previous chapter, what the
extent or character of the fusion could amount to. Vincent
Smith does not think it was much.

5. Tartarisation of India seems to have been as deep
and wide in blood as Aryanisation was in culture. It is
this by which the Hindus of mediaeval India became one
with the people of contemporary China. The Aryans had
brought civilising influences into the land of the Dravidians ;
but the nomad hordes of Central Asia brought only vigorous
and fresh blood, and accepted the civilisation of the new
land in toto. Possibly some primitive folk-characteristics,
traditions of pastoral and agricultural life in Mongolia,
Turkestan and Bactria, the rude nature-deities and supersti-
tions prevailing in the steppes and deserts of the wild
homeland, were necessarily introduced as new factors into
Indian social life. It is to this common ethnic element
that the commonness of some of the folk-beliefs in different
parts of Asia may have to be attributed. Howorth's History

TARTARISATION OF ARYANISED DRAVIDIANS 199

of the Mongols is a monumental work on the Central Asian
tribes in Bnglish.

Roughly speaking, Tartarisation or Scythianisation of
the Aryanised Dravidians of India, was effected in three
different, but not necessarily successive, waves. The first
wave was that of the Sakas, that of the Kushans the second,
and the third that of the Huns. The waves overwhelmed
not only the Northwest, the Punjab, Sindh and Gujrat, but
the whole of Northern India, and crossed the Vindhyas also
to fertilise the Deccan plateau and Konkan plains. As has
been noted in a previous chapter, the Central Asian migrations
into the Indian sphere of influence can be traced to about
the second century B.C.. Since then for about half a
millennium the stream of immigration seems to have been'
continuous. The Central Asians poured in either as peace-
ful settlers or as invaders, so that layer upon layer of Tartar
humanity began to be deposited on the Indian soil.

The Saka settlements at Taxila in the Punjab and at
Mathura on the Jumna probably as 'satrapies' of a Parthian
(Persian) power, the independent Saka Kingdom in
Saurashtra or Kathiawar which was destroyed by the Gupta
Emperor in A.D. 390, the Kushan Empire which under
Kanishka extended in India probably as far South as the
Vindhyas, the Saka Satrapy at Ujjain probably tributary to
Kanishka, the Kshaharata Satrapy of Maharashtra at Nasik
which was annexed to the Andhra monarchy about A.D.
126, "the Abhiras, Gardabhilas, Sakas, Yavanas, Bahlikas,
and other outlandish dynasties named as the successors of
the Andhras " in the Puranas, — all these are instances of
Hinduisation of Tartar conquerors down to the time of the
Gupta Emperors.

200 CHINESE REWGION

The Hun-element in tlie Tartarisation of India began
towards the close of the Gupta era. It was the Huns who
destroyed the brilliant Empire and occupied north-western
Punjab. They invaded the heart of India also and left
settlements in Rajputana, during the fifth and sixth
centuries, but were finally defeated by the Vardhanas in
A.D. 604.

Recent researches of archaeologists have thrown a flood
of light on the fusion of the Hunnic and the Indian races.
The present tendency among scholars is to believe that
almost all the important ruling dynasties in Northern India
between Bmperor Harshavardhana (t A.D. 647), the host
of Hiuen Thsang, and Mohammedan invasions, were
descendants of the mixed races, and may be regarded as
more or less Tartarised or Scythianised.

Thus (1) most of -the Rajput clans, some of which
continue as Feudatories of the British Empire, should trace
their pedigrees back to the Se (Sakas) , Kushan (Yue-chi),
and Hun (Hiung-nu) barbarians of Central Asia, rather
than to the Sun, or the Moon, or the Fire-god.

(2) The Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kanauj, whose do-
minions under Mihira Bhoja (A.D. 840-90), and Mahendra-
pala (890-905?), according to Vincent Smith, "may be
called an empire without exaggeration ", " were the
descendants of barbarian foreign immigrants into Rajputana
in the fifth or sixth century;" "closely associated with,
and possibly allied in blood to, the White Huns."

(3) Professor Jadunath Sarkar, in reviewing Banerji's
History of Bengal written in Bengali language, suggests
that the ancestors of the Pala Emperors (A.D. 730-1130),
who, according to Smith, " succeeded in making Bengal one
of the great powers of India, ' ' and established ' ' one of the

TARTARISATION OP- ARYANISED DRAVIDIANS 201

most remarkable of Indian dynasties," were tlie Rajbhats
of Gorakhpur in U.P. ; and tkat these were, like the
Gurjaras, Guhilots, Rashtrakutas, Solankis, etc., descendants
of the Tartar settlers.

It may be remarked, therefore, that the democratic
blood of the modern Bengal bourgeoisie and the blue blood
of the Rajput aristocracy are both derived from the common
spring of the uncouth blood of the savage Central Asian
Huns.

6. Lastly, must be mentioned the race-fusion within
the limits of India herself. The constant shifting of the
political centre of gravity from place to place, and military
occupations of the territories of neighbouring princes by
ambitious monarch s — both afforded ample scope for social
amalgamation and necessarily brought about inter-provincial
blood-mixture. The effects of dynastic revolutions and ter-
ritorial readjustments on the social status of tribes and castes
should require a separate treatment.

It is not known what the Gupta Bmperors were
ethnologically ; but that the people over whom they ruled
were a composite product there is no doubt.

To bring the story of race-mixture and culture-fusion
in India to a close, I need only mention the following
three important stages : —

7. Islamite Invasions under the P^thans (A.D. 1300-
1550). These commencing with the tenth century were
of the nature of previous Tartar settlements or still earlier
Aryan colonisings. The conflict of the Hindus with
the new-comers was certainly very bitter like that
described in the Vedic literature as having taken place be-
tween the Indo-Aryans and the aboriginal Dasyus. But

202 CHINESE RELIGION

tte Indian capacity for assimilation led to happy compro-
mises as soon as it was found tliat the Pathans meant to
adopt Hindusthan as their motherland, and not exploit it
in the interests of a far-ofF Transoxiana.

8. Saracenisation of the Indian population was the
result of these new conditions. It may be conveniently
described as having taken place under the powerful Moghul
Monarchy (A.D. 1550-1700). This was the period of
Mahometans Hinduising arid Hindus Islamising in every
department of life. The glorious civilisation of the age
was neither exclusively Hindu, nor exclusively Mahometan,
but an off-spring of the holy wedlock between the two. It
was Indo-Saracenic or Hindu-Islamic. The scars and
wounds of the invasion-period had long been healed when
the Imperial Head at Delhi was found to inherit the blood
both of the Rajput and of the Mongol, when the Taj
Mahal, that dream-verse in marble, raised its stately domes
and minarets on the fair Jumna, — a visible symbol of the
marriage between indigenous and foreign art-traditions, when
language,* literature, painting, music, religious preachings
and philosophical teachings, folk-lore, fairs, processions,
and even the commonplace superstitions testified to the
eclectic spirit of the age.

Not only Chaitanya (1485-1533) and Nanak (1469-
1538), Kabir (1440P-1518?) and Tukarama (1608-49), the
Martin Luthers and Calvins of India, but the musician Tan
Sen, the emperor Jahangir, the viceroy Man Singh, the
statistician Abul Fazl, and the financier Todar Mall are all
embodiments of that Indo-Saracenic life^fusion. The Re-
naissance that characterised the 16th and 17th centuries was

* See Naren I,aw's Promotion of Learning in India by Mohammedan
Rulers (Longmans, 1915. )

CASTE-SVSTEM AND MILITARY HISTORY 203

as brilliant as the VikramMityan Renaissance of a thousand
years ago, and must be evaluated as the result of naturalisa-
tion of Saracenic culture in India.

9. Deccanisation (or South-Indianisation) of Hindu-
sthan under the Hindu Empire of the Marath^s. This may
be said to have been a powerful factor in Indian civilisation
during the period from the rise of Sivaji the Great (c A.D.
1650) to the overthrow of the last Peshwa by the British
(1818). During all previous ages, generally speaking, it
was the North that had influenced the South* both
culturally and politically. Since the middle of the 17th
century it was the turn of the South to influence the North.
It was not only the reaction of the Hindu against the
Mahometan power, but also that of Dakshinatya against
Aryhvarta. To understand the race, religion, customs,
and culture of Northern India from Orissa to Gujrat or from
Assam frontier on the Bast to the territory of the Amir of
Kabul on the West during the 18th century it is absolutely
necessary to analyse the social influences of the splendid
Maratha conquests.

((?) Caste-System and Military History.

In this connexion it may not be inappropriate to enter
into a digression concerning the blood- intermixture within
the limits of the Indian continent, and thus throw a side-
light on the history of castes.

It has been the custom up till now to study the caste
system of the Hindus from the socio-economic and socio-

* It need be noted, however, that of the greatest thinkers of Mediaeval
India, SankarAch&ryya (788-850), Rftma,nuja (12th century), Madhva (13th
century) , and RS,mtoanda (14th century) were all Southerners; and the Northern-
ers, e.g., Chaitanya, N3,nak and Kabir, were the disciples of their systems. Be-
sides, the influence of the Tamil Napoleons on Orissa, the buffer between
Bengalee and Chola Empires, (and ultimately on Bengal), during the 11th
century, has to be recorded.

204 CHINESE REWGION

religious points of view. The fundamental fact about it,
however, is physical. For all practical purposes the castes
are groups of human beings designed for the regulation
of marriages, i.e.^ selection of mates. The Caste-system
should thus form the subject matter not merely of Economics
and Theology, but also, and primarily, of Eugenics. In
fact, the eugenic aspect of the castes is the basis of the
socio-economic and socio-religious problems as treated by
such classical Hindu law-givers as Manu.

A scientific treatment of the Caste System, therefore, is
tantamount to the history of marriages or blood-relation-
ships among the Hindus, and of the changes in their eugenic
ideas. It thus becomes a part of the larger subject of Race-
Intermixture, i.e.. Ethnology, or Physical Anthropology.

It has been shown above that the Physical Anthropology
of Indian population has been powerfully influenced b}' the
political and military history. The study of castes, there-
fore, has to be undertaken from a thoroughly new angle,
viz., that of dynastic changes, military expeditions, sub-
jugation of races, empire-building and political disruption.
It ultimately resolves itself into a study of the influence of
warfare on social and economic transformation. When the
caste system is thus studied as a branch of the military his-
tory of the people of India, it would be found —

1. That the facts of the present day socio-economic
and socio-religious system cannot be carried back beyond a
certain age.

2. That the attempt to understand Vedic, post-Vedic,
Sak3'asimhan, Maurya, post - Maurya, Andhra - Kushan,
Gupta, and even Vardhana, Pala, Gurjara-Pratihara and
Chola societies according to the conventions of the Caste-
system known to-day is thoroughly misleading.

CASTE-SYSTEM AND MILITARY HISTORY 205

3. Tliat probably down to the 13tli century, i.e., the
beginning of Islamite aggressions on India, the history of
social classes supplies more data for the study of races than
for casteAasiiOTY.

4. That such terms as Brahman, Kshatriya, etc., have
not meant the same thing in all the ages down to that
period — the same term may have covered various races and
tribes.

5. That it is an open qxiestion how far the four-fold
division of society in authoritative works down to that time
was, like Plato's classification, a "legal fiction," and to what
extent and in what sense it was an actual institution.

6. Since the 13th century there may have been formed
eugenic groups like those we see to-day — but not necessarily
four — in fact, innumerable.

7. These groups could never have been stereotyped
but must have remained very elastic — because of the
changes in the fortunes of the rulers, generals, viceroys,
etc., and the corresponding changes in importance of local-
ities, tribes and families. [The kaleidoscopic boundary-
changes in Europe during the last five hundred years have
repeated themselves on a somewhat smaller scale in the
Indian world] .

8. Under conditions which must be regarded as more
or less feudal, the customs were always local and were
never codified into fixed cakes as in the 19th century; and
hence silent intrusions of new influences through economic
pressure, or violent modifications through political revolu-
tion, were matters of course. It need be recognised, therefore,
that the vertical as well as horizontal mobility of the popula-
tion was greater under feudal than modern conditions.

206 CHINESE RELIGION

9. The rise into prominence of a certain caste through
military prowess or political aggrandisement led to a certain
system of social values, which was sure to have been
transvalued with its overthrow by another. In this way
the political and military history of races down to the 13th
century must have repeated itself in that of castes since
then.

10. The consequence of changes in political and
military history has been what may be described as a regular
* ' convection-current ' ' throughout the socio-economic sys-
tem, making the elevation and depression of castes exactly
parallel to that of races — the leading classes of one age being
the depressed classes of another, and so on. The race-history
and class-history have been affected in the same way all the
world over by the history of warfare.

11. In each case of socio-economic transformation
brought about by military-political revolutions the new orders
have tried to preserve the old "legal fiction" by afi&liating
themselves to the traditional orders. The dynamic principle
of ' progress ' has thus been in operation in each synthesis,
though the statical principle of 'order' has never been lost
sight of. The student of Caste-history should recognise
these successive syntheses as the milestones of Hindu social
evolution.

12. The economic aspect of the castes as occupational
grades, and the auxiliary religious aspect which ultimately
implies only the guardianship of the Brahman caste in
theological matters, must be regarded as an appendix, rather
than as a prelude, to the political-cum-military treatment of
the subject.

13. To understand the caste-system historically it has
to be clearly realised that there was no Pax Britannica in

CASTE-SYSTEM AND MILITARY HISTORY 207

ancient and mediseval times, and that warfare was a normal
phenomenon with the Hindus as it has been with every race
of human beings from the earliest times down to the present
day. In India as in Europe there has been no generation
without war.

14. Under these circumstances both the orthodox
metaphysical Doctrine of AdhikAra {i.e., intellectual and
moral ' fitness' as the regulative principle of caste-
distinction), as well as the doctrinaire Social-Reform -theory
of Equality of Rights (which is supposed to be infringed
by the caste system) are equally irrelevant and un-
historical. They seem to have been started by those who
were led to consider the social order under peace-conditions
to be the same as that under conditions of normal progress
through struggle for existence.

15. (a) That, after all, the classes in Hindu Social life
have evolved on almost the same lines as those of other
peoples, (3) that blood-intermixture has been no less potent
in Indian society than in others, (c) that the abnormalities
supposed to inhere in the system of social groups called
castes have not really existed in history, but are the myths
invented by the ignorant Portuguese settlers in the 16th
century, who were struck by the superficial distinctions
between their own life and that of the Hindus, and
subsequently perpetuated by Orientalists who have not cared
to compare the actual conditions and history of matrimonial
relations among the Hindus with those among their own
races, (<i) that even at the present day the scope for intrusion
of new blood into the Hindu castes is actually not less than
that in the groups of other communities ; and {e) that a
historical study for the state of things obtaining in the past^

208 CHINESE RELIGION

and a statistical-comparative study for that in tlie present^
would be tlie solvents for the erroneous theories regarding
the origin as well as nature of the institution.

Section 4,
A Well of Devotional Eclecticism — The Religion

OF THE PURANAS.

With the establishment of the Guptas at PStaliputra we
enter modem India. The beginning of Vikramadityan
Imperialism is the beginning of modern Hindu religions.
It was the age of Puranas, of Sanskrit revival, of well-peopled
pantheons of deities, of spiritual inspiration as the nurse
of sculpture, and of religion as the handmaid of Art. The
modern Hindu of any denomination, Jaina, Maha3'anist,
Shaiva or Vaishnava, can easily understand the Vikramadi-
tyan Kaliddsa, and parley with him without a special prepara-
tion. But the preceding Andhra-Kushans and the still older
Mauryas are to him considerably antique and archaic. The
currency of thought, the conventions and technique of life
obtaining in the age of the Raghu-vamsam are almost the
same as to-day, but the Hindus of the age of Arihasdstra
or even of Aswaghosha's Awakening of the Faith in the
MahoL-ydna thought in other terms and lived in other spheres.
To take a simple analogy. As Chaucer is to Shakespeare, so
is Kautilya to Kalidasa ; and as Shakespeare-cum-Bacon is to
Bernard Shaw, the socialist, so is Kalidasa-cum-Varahamihira
to Rabindranath Tagore, the modern nationalist. And this
as much in religion and morals as in literature and art.

{a) Pauranic Synthesis.

It has been well said that the appreciation of Milton's
poetry is the last test of consummate Classical scholarships

PAURiNiC SYNTHESIS 209

It may be said with the same force that the appreciation of
Kalidasan literature is the last test of consummate Paurfinic
scholarship. To enjoy the merits of this art one must 'bfe well
grounded in the Puranas. The religious life of the Pur^nas
is the atmosphere of Kalidasa's poetry ; and the Puranas
(including the Rdmdyana and the Makdbkarata) are
repositories of whatever had been taught in the Vedas,
Upam'skads, Nii-vanistic suitas, Arihasasita, G^id and
Vedanta. In reading Kalidasa we seem to be turning from
the Santiparva of Mahabharata to a chapter of Pauranic
mythology ; at one place we seem to be listening to the
lectures of Manu the law-giver, at another the sublime
rhapsody of the Valmikian bards. Kalidasa wrote of Rama-
incarnation, sang hymns to Vishnu, the Lord of the Universe,
dipped his pen deep in the Shaiva lore, and had thorough
mastery over the Renunciation-cult, the doctrine of self-
sacrifice, etc. , preached by Sakyasimha. The literature of
Kalidasa is thus the art-form of that religious eclecticism
which has characterised Hindu life in every age. The
sculpture of the Gupta era also bears eloquent testimony to
the same toleration and goodwill between sects and denomi-
nations.

The Puranas had been growing since at least Maurya
times, as Smith notes in reviewing Pargiter's Dynasties
of the Kali Age ; in the time of the Guptas they were
fully recast, re-interpreted and brought up to date, ias Sir
Bh^ndarkar suggests. The days of the Prakrit languages had
long been over. Sanskrit was now the language of culture
and religious literaiture with all sects of Hinduism. No
longer the uncouth Fedas, no longer the PSli Tiipitaka
or the Prakrit Jaina Canon, but works like the Puranas in
simple, chaste and elegaiit Sanskrit were the Bibles of the

210 'CHINESE RELIGION

Gupta age. The eclectic religion of these Sanskrit Puranas
was but a representative expression of that Religion of Love
which had by this time established a secure empire over the
Hindu heart, — Jaina, and Mahayana, Shaiva and Vaishnava.
We noticed the beginnings of Bhakti^ modern mythology,
avatar a-Q.Viit^ etc., inJVIaurya times, and traced their well-
formed limbs in Andhra-Kushali era. By the time of the •
Guptas they had become the A. B.C. of Hindu thought.

\b') Jainism

The spiritual trend of the times that can be known from
the scriptures of the Jainas, Shaivas, Vaishnavas and
Buddhists indicates a common belief in human infirmity,
and the efficacy of prayers to a loving personal god.
Sanskrit literature became one vast ocean of love and
devotion. The note of Bhakti^ z'.^., devotion or love, is
obvious in the following extract from' Barnett's Heart of
India :

"To thee, whose footstool buds with serried beams
From gems of all god-emperors' stooping crown,
Disperser of the banded powers of sin,
Friend of threefold world, great Victor, hail.

The sins that cling from birth to bodied souls,
P'^ade all, and are no more, through praise of thee ;
Before the fiery sunlight's serried rays '
How long can dreary darkness hold its place?

Fain for salvation, I am come to Thee,
The guide to, cross the forest-wilds of Life ;
Wilt thou not heed when Passion's robber band
Would snatch from me thy Treasure's trinity ?"

JAINISM 211

This is part of a favourite Jaina hymn, called the
Bhupala-stotra. "This is addressed to one of the twenty-
four Redeemers, who, according to Jaina doctrine, have
appeared in successive ages on earth, teaching mankind to
spare all life, even of the lowest creatures, and to hasten the
salvation of their souls by mortification of the body."

That this Jainism was, like Shaivism and Vaishnavism,
only one of the sects of Hinduism, would be apparent from
the following account in Stevenson's Heart of Jainism. ' ' It
had always employed Brahmans as its domestic chaplains,
who presided at its birth rites and often acted as officiants at
its death and marriage ceremonies and temple worship.
Then, too, among its chief heroes it had found niches for
some of the favourites of the Hindu pantheon, Rama,
Krishna and the like. ' '

It is thus difficult, as has been indicated in a previous
chapter, to distinguish the images of Jaina gods from those
of the Buddhist, Shaiva and Vaishnava pantheons. The
bhakta could not do without the form of his love, and con-
verted religion into a handmaid of art. The lover and the
artist have ever been convertible terms, because self-
expression is the common characteristic of both. In the
present instance, the bhaktas or artists of all denominations
expressed the same self. The same religious imagination
was drawn upon by sculptors whether for the Jaina devotee
or for the Shaiva. Images originating from the same heart
could not but come out with the same marks. Art could not
improvise or manufacture differences where the inspira-
tion was the same. The differences have to be made out
only in a few externals.

Jainism in the form in which it is difficult to distinguish
from other isms of India had a prosperous career since the

212 CHINESE RELIGION

beginning of the Christian era. Mrs. Stevenson says : ' ' The
faith spread over the whole of the west and rose to great
prominence and power in Gujrat. We ,have also evidence
of its activity in most parts of Southern India during the
first millennium of the Christian era."

' ' In South India earliest literary movement was
predominantly Jaina. In Tamil literature from the earliest
times for many centuries Jaina poets hold a great place.
The Jivaka Chintdmani, perhaps the finest of all Tamil
poems, is a Jaina work. Eight thousand Jaina, it is said,
each wrote a couplet, and the whole when joined together
formed the famous Nalddiyar. * * * More famous still
is the Kurrul of Tiruvalluvar, the masterpiece of Tamil
literature. "

The whole Jaina canon was reduced to writing in A.D.
454 at the Council of Vallabhi in Gujrat. " The zenith of
Jaina prosperity lasted from the Council of Vallabhi to the
13th century.' ' Consequently when in the middle of the 7th
century Hiuen Thsang visited India he saw numbers of
Jaina monks in prosperous temples, especially in the south.

(^) Shaivaism

The worship of Shiva also has been handed down from
earlier times and counted many votaries in the Gupta age.
Specimens of Shaiva faith are being given from South Indian
Tamil literature of a later date. Barnett writes :

' ' No cult in the world has produced a richer devotional
literature, or one more instinct with brilliance of imagina-
tion, fervour of feeling, and grace of expression. Of its
many great poets the greatest is Manikka-Vachakar (11th
century A.D.)"

VAISHNAVISM 215

The following is a quotation from the Tamil Shaivite's
Tiru- Vdchakam :

O barrer of ways of beguiling sense, who wellest forth

in my heart,
Pure fount of nectar, O Light supreme, shew Thyself

unto me as thou art.
Of thy grace appear, Thou clearest of clear whose home

is the Mighty Shiva Shrine,
Thou Bliss transcending all states unending, O perfect

Love that is mine !
"Manikka-vachakar is the favourite poet of the orthodox
Sivaite Church. Its rites inspired many of his hymns, and
he has fourld his reward in being sung in numberless
temples. ' '

The ecstasy of a Shaiva devotee finds vent in the follow-
ing verses translated by Dr. Pope from Tamil Tiruvdsagam :

' ' Sire, as in union strict, thou mad' st me thine ; on

me didst look, didst draw me near ;
And when it seemed I ne'er could be with thee made

one — when nought of thine was mine —
And nought of mine was thine — me to thy feet thy

love
In mystic union joined. Lord of the heavenly land, —

'Tis height of blessedness."
It may be mentioned that Kalidasa's epic Kumdra-
Sambhavam or "The Birth of Kumara (War-Lord)" is a
study in the Shaiva mythology of his age, and that he begins
his Raghu-vamsam with invocation to the Shaiva deities.

{d) Vaishnavism
The Gupta Emperors themselves were the worshippers
of Vishnu. Prof. Barnett in his Heart of India gives the

214 CHINESE RELIGION

following verse as characteristic of the Vaishnavite ' ' god-
ward love in utter self- surrender : "

Oh, give me a love firm-set on Thee

Jandrdana, and blind to gain ;

I will joyfully turn from heavenward hopes,

And on earth in the body remain.

Also,

" Dear Lord, no peer in misery have I,

No peer hast thou in grace.
This binds us twain; and canst Thou then deny
To turn to me thy face ? ' '

In the words of the Vaishnava follower of the ' religion
of love,' "what avail offerings, holy places, penances, or
sacrifices to him in whose 'heart is the shrine of Hari's
presence ? "

The Imperial faith in Vishnu and the Pauranic legends
of Krishna is well illustrated by an interesting incident in
connection with Skandagupta's defeat of the Huns between
A.D. 455 and 458. Vincent Smith narrates the story
thus : " His mother still lived, and to her the hero
hastened with the news of his victory, just as Krishna,
when he had slain his enemies, betook himself to his mother
Devaki. Having thus paid his duty to his living parent,
the king sought to enhance the religious merit of his deceas-
ed father by the erection of a pillar of victory, surmounted
by the statue of the god Vishnu, and inscribed with
an account of the delivery of his country from barba-
rian tyranny through the protection of the gods."

The above interpretation of the Puranic Krishna-story
has a parallel in the annals of Europe also. In the 17th
century William of Orange was regarded as an avatara of

VAISHNAVISM 215-

the Old Testam«^nt gods who had come down among the
Dutch to deliver the people from the • fetters of Louis XIV
and thus effect an Yugdntara or revolution in Zeitgeist.
Thus Macaulay writes of the mission of William in his
History of England^ vol. I :

" The French monarchy was to him what the Roman
republic was to Hannibal, what the Ottoman power was to
Scanderbeg, what the southern domination was to Wallace.
Religion gave her sanction to that intense and unquench-
able animosity. Hundreds of Calvinistic preachers proclaim-
ed that the same power which had set apart Samson from the
womb to be the scourge of the Philistine, and which had
called Gideon from the threshing floor to smite the Midianite,
had raised up William of Orange to be the champion of all
free nations and of all pure churches."

In Canto X of Raghuvamsam we have the following
hymn to Vishnu addressed by the gods praying for His
intervention in order to overthrow their enemy Ravana :

"Glory to Thee in triple form adored.
Creator, Saviour, and destroying Lord !
Each of these forms, unchanging God ! is thine.
Even as the mystic triad may assign.

Omniscient Lord, but known to none art thou ;
Subject to none, to thee all creatures bow.
Maker of all things, Self-existent still ;
One, yet the wearer of all forms at will.
* * *

None e'er may know Thee, God without a birth
Yet born in many a mortal form on earth.

216 CHINESE, RELIGION

What thougli iij; scripture many a way we see

That leads to BJiss, they all unite in thee :

* * *

To those who fix on Thee, their heart and mind,
And trust in thee, with every wish resigned.
Thou art the way that leads to endless joy,
Which none can lose again, nor time destroy. ' '
It is essential to remember that instances of a Vaishnava,
Shaivaising and a Shaiva Vaishnavising were as comnion as
those of a Jaina Vaishnavising and a Vaishnava Jainaising,
and so forth. Thus, declarations of the Lord like "I am
Vishnu, I am Brahma, I am Shiva" abound in Mahabharata
and Pur ana literature.

(,?) Buddhism Mixed up with other isms
This was the fountain at which the great bhakta of
China, Fa-Hien, came to quench his spiritual thirst. The
Celestial missionary found bhaktas everywhere in India.
It was the era of romanticism and spiritual ecstasy — known
under diverse names, Jaina or Vaishnava, Buddhist or
Shaiva. If the devotees differed from one another at all, it
was only in the name of their Love and Lord, not even in
the method of approach, because the approach to Love must
ever be the same. They differed probably in some externals
of life, e.g.^ as to the method of using the toothpick, or shav-
ing the head, or as to the proper times for religious worship,
ablutions, etc..

It was impossible for Fa-Hien to get a ' ' well ' '
of Buddhism " undefiled," as it was impossible for
others to get a "well" of Vaishnavism. "undefiled" or a
'well" of Shaivism "undefiled." All these isms were
gushing forth mixed up with one another from the same
whirlpool of devotion. It was out of the question for those

RENAISSANCE: AND T?HE NAVARATNA 217

wiio lived at the time to mark out the individual character-
istics of each faith, as it is hopeless to-day for scholars in.
the library to dissect the special st];ands. The anatomist of
those [Religions of Bhfikti or Heart-Culture would only
succeed by sacrificing the unifying physiology of lyove.

The Mahayanist follower of the Awakening of Faith
joined the other votaries of Love to sing one common
chorus of devotion :

' ' We have but faith : we cannot know ;

For knowledge is of things we see ;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,

A beam in darkness : let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more

But more of reverence in us dwell ;
That mind and soul according well,

May make one music as before.

But vaster. ' '

So the Vaishnava and the Jaina, the Shaiva and the
Buddhist of the Gupta era sat at the same well of devotional
eclecticism and raised "one music as before but vaster, "
thereby developing the Bhakti-cult and Romanticism of the
Puranas.

Section 5.

The Age of Kalidisa.

(fl) Renaissance and the Navaratna.

It was a New India, this India of the Guptas — a new
stage, new actors, and what is more, a new outlook..
Extensive diplomatic relations with foreign powers, military
renown of digvijaya at home, overthrow of the ' barbarians '
on the western borderland, international trade, maritime

218 CHINESE REI/IGION

activity, expansion of the motherland, missionising abroad,
the blending of races by which the flesh and blood of the
population was almost renewed, and social transformation
as epochmaking as the first Aryanisation itself-^all these
ushered in in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian
era a thorough rejuvenation and a complete overhauling of
the old order of things in Hindusthan. The Indians of the
Vikramadityan era started their life afresh — with young eyes
and renovated mentality.

Bdmund Spenser dedicating his Faerie Qtieene to the
" most mighty sovereign " referred to the wonders of his
age as the inspiration of ' ' merrie Bngland : ' '

' ' Who ever heard of the Indian Peru ?

Or fruitfuUest Virginia who did ever view ? "

To the Indians of the Gupta age also it was a veritable
age of wonders. That was the time

"When meadow, grove and stream.
The earth, and every common sight"

To them did seem
' ' Apparell 'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream."
Hindu tradition has ever known this era to be the age
of Navaratna (or Nine Gems, z>., celebrities). In modem
times since the publication of A Peep into the early history
of India from the foundation of the Maury a Dynasty to the
downfall of the Imperial Gupta Dynasty {B.C. 322 — A.D.
500) by Sir Bhandarkar of Bombay, it has become a com-
monplace with indologists to call it the age of Hindu
Renaissance.

RENAISSANCE AND THE NAVARATNA 219-

The colours, the sunshine, the bursting vitality of the
spring, and the joy of life, which characterised this age would
appear from the following verses : *

See, no more languid with the heat of day,
A hundred fair ones, all mine own, at play
In Sarju's waves, which, tinted with the dyes
That graced their bosoms, mock the evening skies,
When dark clouds roll along, and, rolling, show,
Upon their skirts, the lines of sunset's glow.
Stirred by their play, the gently rippling wave
Steals from their eyes the dye the pencil gave ;
But quick the light of love and joy returns.
And each moist eye with brighter lustre burns.
See, as they revel in their merry sport.
Their bracelets' weight the girls can scarce support,
Well nigh o'erladen with their wealth of charms, —
Their broad full bosom, their voluptuous arms.
Look, how the flower that decked that lady's ear
Slips from her loosened hair, and floating near
The river's bank, deceives the fish that feeds
On the sweet buds of trailing water-weeds.
To meet the wave, their heads the bathers bend.
And the large drops adown their cheeks descend :
You scarce can tell them from the pearls that deck —
So pure and bright are they — each lady's neck.
Now at one view I see the beauties there,
The poet-lovers in their lays compare :
The curling ripples of the waves, that show
Her eye-brow's arching beauty, as they flow;
The two fond love-birds, on the wave that rest,
And the twin beauties of a lady's breast.

* Griffith's Idylls from the Sanskrit.

220 " CHINESE RELIGION

I hear- tlie sound of; plashing waves, that comes ■
Mixed with sweet singing like the roll of drums.
The peacocks, listening on the shore, rejoice,
Spread their broad tails, and raise the answering voice.
Still the girls' jewelled zones are .gleaming bright,
Like stars, when, moonbeams shed their pearly light.
But now no more the melody can ring
Upon those waists, to which the garments cling.
Showing their graceful forms ; the water fills
The bells that tinkled, and their music stills.
Look ! there a band of ladies, bolder grown.
O'er a friend's head a watery stream have thrown;
And the drenched girl, her long black hair untied,
Wrings out the water with the sandal dyed.
Still is their dress most lovely, though their play
Has loosed their locks, and washed the dye away.
And though the pearls, that wont their neck to grace
Have slipped, disordered, from their resting place.
This is a description of the Ladies' Bath fifteen hundred
years before the age of Vaudevilles, Dancing Parlours and
Swimming Pools. It would remind at once of the carnalism
and realistic coarseness of the mediaeval Le Roman de la Rose
and of the romantic Provencal literature that grew^ up round
the 'Courts of Love,' or of the Renaissance sonneteers of
England who showed ' ' the tender eye-dawn of aurorean
love ' ' and disdained the joys of paradise since they excluded
the joys of loving.

We have no time to see specimens of the Hindu delight
in " a thing of beauty," which "is a joy for ever ;" but may
quote the following words of Smith : " The Gupta period,
taken in a wide sense as extending from about A. D. 300 to
650, and meaning more particularly the fourth and fifth

RENAISSANCE AND THE NAvARATNA 221

centuries, was a time of exceptional intellectual activity in
many fields — a time not unworthy of comparison with the
Elizabethan and Stuart period in England. In India all the
lesser lights are outshone by the brilliancy of Kalidasa, as in
England all the smaller authors are overshadowed by
Shakespeare. But, as the Elizabethan literature would
still be rich even if Shakespeare had not written, so in India,
if Kalidasa 's works had not survived, enough of other men's
writings would remain to distinguish his age as extra-
ordinarily fertile in literary achievement."

It has to be added that this quickening of intellectual
life was not confined to Northern India. The Renaissance
had begun in the south earlier than in the north. Mr. S.
Krishnaswamy Aiyangar in his Ancient India places the
golden age of Tamil literature in the first century A. D..
But Mr. Gover in his Folksongs of Southern India would
place it in the third.

Nor need we linger over the sculptures* of the age, the
merits of which have been attracting notice in recent years,
or of the Ajanta paintings renowned in world's art-
history.

The nine celebrated luminaries of Hindu folk-lore
associated with the patronage of Vikramdditya were : —

1. Dhanvantari — the physician,

2. Kshapanaka — the philologist.

3. Amarasimha' — the lexicographer.

4. Sanku— the elocutionist.

5. Vetalabhatta — ^the necromancer.

6. Ohatakarpara — the politician.

7. Kdlidasa — ^the poet.

*See Smith's " Indian ^Scupture of the Gupta Period" in Ostasiatische
Zeitschrift (April-June, 1914).

222 CHINESE RELIGION

8. Varahamiliira^tlie- astronomer and mathematician.

9. Vararuchi — the grammarian of Prakrit languages.
It is an open question if these celebrities were

contemporaries, like Kalidasa, of the great Guptas. It has
been now established that Kalidasa flourished during the
reigns of Chandragupta II. and Kum^ragupta I. when the
Gupta power was at its height (A.D. 390-450). His literary
activity, therefore, extended during the period while the
Chinese Missionary Fa-Hien was a state-guest at Pataliputra.

Varahamihira belonged to the sixth century. He lived
between A.D. 505 and 587. Amarasimha also might have
been a Guptan. But how far they were contemporaries of
the great poet cannot be known for certain. As for others in
this sweet company of "strange bed-fellows," the mists of
folklore are as yet too deep to allow any light upon their
historic personality.

The tradition, therefore, has to be taken as an indication
of the wonderful influence the Gupta age had upon the
imagination of the people. We see in it the all-round
intellectual activity of the period from physical science to
oratory. It may also be mentioned that among these
Kshapanaka and Amarasimha have been claimed as
Jainas, Kalidasa is alleged to have been a peasant or
agriculturist by family profession, and Ghatakarpara a
potter. The futility of trying to understand India through
the spectacles of a particular caste or creed would thus be
apparent. The Indian Vidyds, or sciences, and Kalds, or
arts, were never Brahmana, or Buddhist, or Jaina, or
Kshatriya or Vaisya or Sudra.

Another name which historically belongs to this age
but has not been included in the Navaratna is that of
Kryabhata {c 490) the mathematician.

RENAISSANCE AND THE NAVARATNA 221

In Varahamiliira's Brihat Samhita we haye an inter-
esting passage wlaicli indicates that the Hindus were willing
to learn from anybody who could teach them: " Bven the
Mlechchhas and Yavanas who have studied the sciences well
are respected as Rishis." Here is a confession of Varaha-
mihira's indebtedness to Greek Astronomy. He was not an
advocate of ' splendid isolation^ ' but wanted to keep abreast
of the times.

The Opus MaJHS of Roger Bacon, the intellectual pre-
cursor of the Elizabethan Francis Bacon, has been described
by Dr. Whewell as "at once the Bncyclopsedia and the
Novum Organum of the 13th century." So the works of
Varahamihira are not merely astronomical but sum up the
whole Positive Science of the Hindus of the Vikramadityan
age. They constitute a very important landmark in the
thought of Mediseval Asia.

When we speak of Hindu* and Oriental physical sciences
it is again necessary to refer to Comparative Chronology.
It has to be remembered —

1. That the Western discoveries^mechanical, chemi-
cal and biological — which have revolutionised world's
movements and have given birth to modern life, cannot,
strictly speaking, be traced further back than 1815.

2. That the Western achievements of the 18th century
down to 1815 had been of a very tentative character, and
that during that period both the East and the West were
what may be called mediaeval.

3. That the Renaissance in Europe which produced
a Leibnitz, a Descartes, a Bacon and a Newton in the

* See Prof. BrajendranAth Seal's Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus
(Longmans Green and Co., igis.)

224 CHINESE RELIGION

middle of the 17th century did not, after all, effect that
transformation which we are accustomed to associate with
the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century.

4. That the modem world should therefore be con-
sidered as only 100 years old.

5. That during this period of 100 years the people
of Asia have not contributed a single truth to the culture
of mankind. Asia may be said to ha\e been expunged from
the map of the world throughout the 19th century, the era
of modernism. This has been the only dark age for
Asia.

But the achievements of the Orientals in physical science
and industry down to the age of Descartes and Newton, and
even so late as 1815, have as good a place in the history of
human progress as those of their Occidental colleagues. It
would be quite irrelevant here to elaborate the original
contribution of the Hindus to each department of medieval
science, but it may be mentioned, in passing, that among
others the decimal system of notation, circulation of blood,
use of Zinc in pharmacopoeia, evaluation of tt, and an
exact anatomical system were known in India earlier than
in Europe.

{b) KA.LIDASA, THE SpIKIT OF ASIA

If it is at all necessary to single out one name as
synonym for India and Hindu culture, it is not that of
Manu, Yajnavalkya, Sakyasimha, Asoka, Samudragupta,
Sankaracharyya, Tulsidasa, Sivaji or Chaitanya, but of
Kalidasa the poet of the 4th-5th cent. A.D.. If it is at all
possible to regard any one work as the embodiment of Indian-
ism, it is not the Rig Veda, the Artkasasira, the Tripitaka,

KAWDASA, THE SPIRIT OF ASIA 225

Gith, Vedanta, J^ural (Ta.mil work — 3rd century A.D.),
Sakuntala, Dasa-bodha (Marathi work — 17th century), or
Kavi-kankana Chandi (Bengali work — 17tli century), but
the Raghti-vamsam of Kalidasa. And if it is required to
point to single passages in this epic which may be regarded
as the most convenient Sutra or mnemonic formula for
Indono Damashii (the spirit of Hindusthan), these are : —
A-samudra-kshitishAnam
A-ndka-ratha-vartmanani^
Vdf dhakay muni-vrittinam
Yogendntay tanutyajdm.
I.e., Lords of the lithosphere from sea to sea,
~ Commanding the atmosphere by chariots of air ;
Adopters of the life of the silent sage when old,
And passing away at last through Yoga's aid.
These four phrases occur in the very prelude to
Ragku-vamsam where the poet invokes the deities to help
him in describing the achievements of the House of Raghu.
The following English translaticn is by Grifi&th :
"Yes, I will sing, although the hope be vain
To tell their glories in a worthy strain,
Whose holy flame in earliest life was won,
Who toiled unresting till the task was done.
Far as the distant seas allowed their sway ;
High as the heaven none checked their lofty way,
Constant in worship, prompt in duty's call,
Swift to reward the good, the bad appall,
They gathered wealth, but gathered to bestow,
And ruled their words that all their truth might know.

* I/iterally, whose chariot-tracks went up to the skies. Pseudo-scientists
may read in this and similar other passages in Sanskrit an anticipation of
aeroplanes.

226 CHINESE REWGION

In glory's quest they risked their noble lives ;
For love and children, married gentle wives,
On holy lore in childhood's days intent,
In iove and joy tlieir youthful prime they spent,
As hermits^ mused^ in lifers declining day,
Then in Devotion dreamed theh' souls awayy
Here is a Hegelian synthesis of opposites — the
Machiavellian Kautilya shaking hands with the Nirv&nist
Sakyasimha. Here are secularism and other- worldlyism
welded together into one artistic whole, a full harmony of
comprehensive life. This is Indianism ; and if ' the Bast is
Bast,' this is that Bast.

Buropean travellers in ancient and mediaeval times
Avere impressed by the "wealth of Ormus and of Ind" and
the "barbaric pearls and gold" of " the gorgeous Bast. "
They had no philosopher like Matthew Arnold going out
of his way to poetise about 'the legion,' or stylist like
Kipling to write pseudo-anthropological stories about foreign
races and to start fascinating theories of race-psychology.
They, therefore, did not notice any abnormal mentalities in
the Orient, but found activity and the joy of life scattered
everywhere. The globe-trotters of the steam-age, however,
begin their first lessons in Oriental lore with the dictum that
* ' the Bast is Bast, and the West is West. " They therefore
make it a point to find evidences of 'Oriental Sun, ' 'Oriental
atmosphere,' 'Oriental lethargy, ' 'Oriental intrigue,' 'Oriental
superstition,' 'Oriental corruption, ' and 'Oriental immorality.'
To make "confusion worse confounded," historians and
philosophers who ought to be able to dive beneath the
surface have been misled by the theory of Schopenhauer
about Hindu pessimism. Though Schopenhavier's ideas
do not count for much in the present day life and philosophy

KALIDASA, THE SPIRIT OP ASIA 227

of the western world, the cue supplied by him regarding
the Orient bids fair to be a permanent superstition with those
who should understand better.

That Hindu culture could have expressed itself in an
objective philosophy of energism and positivism would, there-
fore, appear paradoxical to those who have been taught to
know India only in her subjective metaphysics of Nirvanism
and mysticism. Strictly speaking, each represents ' the
truth, and nothing but the truth,' but not 'the whole truth;'
for as the poet has said, "we are but parts and can see only
but parts." As for the travellers of ancient and mediaeval
times, or the tourists and scholars of the modem world, they
have certainly seen only parts, because they came to see only
parts. They were specialists commissioned to study definite
interests. Thus there have been political ambassadors like
Megasthenes, commercial agents like Marco Polo and
Tavernier, sightseers, curio-hunters, and sensation-mongers,
newspaper-reporters who are deputed to get the ' inside
view ' of things, Christian missionaries who must force their
gospel, archaeologists whose interests, if really honest, must
only be the unearthing of 'fossils' from the dead past, and
others, who like all these have been born into the faith
that the Oriental human beings belong to a fundamentally
inferior race.

The whole India is an organic synthesis of the two
philosophies. That synthesis cannot be interpreted fully by
bringing about a mechanical adjustment of the conflicting
reports of tourists and scholars. To unbiassed students
of the philosophy of history, however, that is the only
framework through which the signs of life have to be
read. Besides, the synthetic race-ideal can be studied
in the representative creations of constructive national-

228 CHINESE REMGION

imagination. Hindu Culture found its best expression in
the mind and art of Kalidasa. For the complete view of
Indian life and thought, therefore, one should turn to
Kalidasan literature. And to do justice to it one must apply
the same Method of Literary Criticism as is used in the
interpretation of Dante, Shakespeare, Vondel and Goethe as
exponents of their times. A part of my remarks on the
Raghu-vamsam of Kalidasa made elsewhere* may be repro-
duced in this connexion :

" It is impossible to study it from cover to cover without
noticing how profoundly the greatest poet of Hindusthan has
sought to depict this Hindu ideal of synthesis and harmony
between the positive and the transcendental, the bhoga
(enjoyment) and tyaga (renunciation). Raghu-vamsam is the
embodiment of Hindu India in the same sense that Paradise
Lost is the embodiment of Puritan Bngland. The grand
ambitions of the Vikramadityan era, its colossal energies,
its thorough mastery over the things of this world, its all-
round economic prosperity and brilliant political position, its
Alexandrian sweep, its proud and stately outlook, its vigorous
and robust taste are all graphically painted in this national
epic, together with the " devotion to something' afar from
the sphere of our sorrow," the " light that never was on sea
or land," the sanyasa, vatra§-ya, ahimsa^ j/<?j^fl, Ipreparation
for the other world, the idea of nothingness of this world,
and the desire for mukti or the perpetual freedom from
bondage.

This antithesis, polarity or duality has not, however,
been revealed to us as a hotchpotch of hurly-burly and

^ Foreword to The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology (Panini
Office, Allahabad, India),

KAI^IDASA, THE SPIRIT OF ASIA 229

pellmell conflicts and struggles, but presented in a serene,
sober and well-adjusted system of harmony and synthesis —
which gives 'the World, the Flesh, and the Devil ' their due,
which recognises the importance and dignity of the secular,
the worldly, and the positive, and which establishes the
transcendental, not to the exclusion of, but only above, as
well as in and through, the civic, social and economic
achievements. ' '

It was when this synthetic ideal of the One in the Many,
the Infinite in the Finite, and the Transcendental in
the Positive, was uttering itself in literature, sculpture,
mythology and philosophy that Hindusthan first became
what may truly be called the school of Asia. Kalidasa
as the embodiment of Hindu nationalism is thus the
spirit of Asia. Nobody understands Asia who does not
understand Kalidasa. He is the ' ' God-gifted organ- voice "
of the Orient.

CHAPTER IX.
The Augustan -Age of Chinese Culture

(A.D. 600 — 1250)
Section 1.
The Glorious " Middle Ages " of Asia.
The darkest period of European History known as the
Middle Ages is the brightest period in Asiatic. For over a
thousand years from the accession of Gupta Vikramaditya to
the throne of Pataliputra down to the capture of Con-
stantinople by the Turks the history of Asia is the history of
a continuous growth and progress. It is a record of the
political and commercial as well as cultural expansion — and
the highest water-mark attained by oriental humanity.

(a) Enter Japan and Sailacen.

Kalidasa was the harbinger of spring all through Asia.
The Chinese Renaissance followed hard upon the Hindu
Renaissance of the fifth century A.D. ; and immediately
afterwards from two wings two new actors appeared on the
scene to participate in the general awakening and to add to
the splendour of the Asiatic IMiddle Ages. These were the
Japanese on the East and the Saracens on the West.

The beginning of this. great epoch of Chinese history is
thus characterised by Fenollosa :

We have described the extraordinary invigoration of
Chinese genius due to the sudden fusion into the Dzin and
Tdng empires, apparently for the moment complete, of all
hitherto separate movements and scattered elements, — Bud-
dhist, Taoist, Confucian, Northern, Southern, Tartar and

ENTER JAPAN AND SARACEN 231

Miaotsze. The Tang Dynasty Bad come in as a military
colossus in 618; but the great soldier and leader of Tang
who consolidated Chinese strength and expanded it again far
towards the west, was the second Tang Emperor Taiso
(Tai Tsung), one of the greatest and wisest of Chinese
rulers, who reigned from 627 to 650. It was in this great
westward expansion that the introduction of Grseko-Buddhist
art was effected. Chinese armies and peaceful missions now
marched again westward into Turkestan ; and the pious
pilgrim Hiuen Thsang stopped at all the famous Grasko-
Buddhist sites in Khotan, Turkestan, Gandh^ra and Central
India, collecting manuscripts, drawings and models of every
description, which were all safely brought back to China in
the year 645.

Meanwhile communications by sea had been opened up
with Sassanian Persia ; princes and scholars of the western
kingdom had been received as guests in Taiso's capital and
wrote in Persian the world's first careful notes of the Middle
Empire. * * * There is reason to believe, too, that the
Byzantine Emperors, or their governors in Syria, had held
communication with China and even implored the assistance
of her powerful ruler to make common cause against
Mohammed, who was just starting a conflagration on the
borders of both. Taiso apparently agreed to the alliance, and
his armies were preparing to advance from Turkestan to the
relief of Persia, when the Saracens with Napoleonic haste,
frustrated the junction by driving a wedge eastward across
the Chinese path."

While reading this account one is led to think that all
the conditions of the preceding Hindu Renaissance were

232 CHINESE REI/IGION

repeating themselves on the land of Celestials. In the Land
of the Rising Sun it was the brilliant Nard period (A.D.
710-94). And in the land of the Tigris

"By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,

High-walled gardens green and old,

* * *

In sooth it was a goodly time.

For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid*."
Hindusthan had really crossed the Himalayas. The
Sanskrit Panchatanira was translated into Persian in the
sixth century in order to be palmed down into Europe as
^sop's Fables, Hiuen Thsang was propagating Hindu
Culture in Far Cathay, and Japanese scholars were imbuing
themselves with Hindu ideals at the feet of the Chinese
Masters of Law. For a time, Hindu and Asian became
almost synonymous terms. The intellectual and spiritual
currency of the Bastern world was struck off in the Indian
mints of thought. India became the heart and brain of the
Orient.

It was the message of this Orient that was carried to
Europe by the Islamites and led to the establishment of her
mediaeval universities. In describing the origin of Oxford,
Green remarks in his History of the English People : ' ' The
establishment * * * ^^s everywhere throughout
Europe a special work of the new impulse that Christendom
had gained from the Crusades. A new fervour of study
sprang up in the West from its contact with the more
cultured East. Travellers like Abelard of Bath brought
back the first rudiments of physical and mathematical
science from the schools of Cordova or Baghdad. ' '

» c. A.D. 800.

THE EXPANSION OF ASIA 233

(d) The Expansion of Asia.

The chief feature in the history of Asiatic peoples in
the Middle Ages is their phenomenal expansion.

A glance at the historical atlas of the world from the time
of Attila the Central Asian Hun's havoc on Europe (A.D.
442-47) down to the establishment of the Ottoman Islam
Empire in the place of the Greek (Eastern or Byzantine)
Empire would show that, during all this ]ieriod, not an inch
of Asiatic soil was under foreign rule or even ' sphere of
influence,' except certain parts of Asia Minor.

Rather, on the one hand, the amazingly rapid conquests
of the followers of Mahomet carried the frontier of Asia to
the Pyrenees mountains and converted the Mediterranean
Sea almost into an Asiatic lake. The story of that Expansion
of Asia is to be read best in the history of the Christian
jihads or Holy Wars against Islam. These Crusades
undertaken by Pan-European or Pan-Christian Alliances
were but attempts at self-defence on the part of the
Westerners against a wholesale Orientalisation.

And, on the other hand, the avalanche of the Barbarians
of Scythia kept the whole territory of the Slavs to the east
of the Carpathian Mountains as a mere appendix of Asia.
Princes of Moscow were feudatories and tax-" farmers" to
the Mongol masters. The blood of the modem Russian
reveals the story of that Asianisation.

The freedom of the rest of Christian Europe against
the aggressions of Islamite Arab and the Buddhist Tartar
remained precarious for several centuries. As Yule observes
in his edition of Travels of Marco Polo : "In Asia and

234 CHINESE RELIGION

Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without IMongol
leave from the borders of Poland and the Gulf of Scanderoon
to the Amur and the Yellow Sea." This is a picture of the
13th century (A.D. 1260).

Wordsworth eulogises Venice, ' ' the Queen oi the
Adriatic, ' ' as the bulwark of Europe :

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee,

And was the safeguard of the West."
These lines indicate incidentalh- how far into the heart of
Europe Asiatic sphere of influence penetrated.

The fierce contests between the Turk and the army of the
Hol}'^ Roman Empire at the vers* gates of Vienna in later
times (1529 and 1682) also point to the same fact. That
account is given in T/ze Two Sieges of Vienna^ a work
translated into English from Schimmer's German.

The contributions of Islam to European civilisation
have a place in the pages of Gibbon's Decline and Fall and
of the works of more modem specialists in Saracenic culture.
I may mention also the Indian scholar Ameer All's
luminous History of the Saracens.

The Expansion of Asia from the Tartar (Sc3'thian or
Mongol) side also was not a mere barbaric raid. Howorth
writes in his monumental History of the Mojtgols:

' ' From China, Persia, Europe, from all sides, where
the hoofs of Mongol horses had tramped, there was furnished
a quota of ideas to the common hive, whence it was dis-
tributed. Europe which had sunk into lethargy under the
influence of feudal institutions and of intestine wars, gradu-
ally awoke. An afflatus of architectural energy, as Colonel
Yule has remarked, spread over the world almost directly
after the Mongol conquests. Poetry and the arts began

THB EXPANSION OF ASIA 235

rapidly to revive. The same thing occurred in Persia under
the Ilkhans, the heirs and successors of Khulagu, and in
Southern Russia at Serai, under the successors of Batu-
Khan. * * * The art of printing, the mariner's com-
pass, fire-arins and a great many details of social life, were
not discovered in Europe but imported, by means of Mongol
influence from the furthest Kast."

In the volume, entitled The So-called-Tartars^ of the
same work on Mongols, Howorth describes the Asiatic
expeditions into Central Europe and the permanent con-
quests effected thereby. '* This comprised the country from
the Yaik to the Carpathian mountains, and included a
suzerainty over Russia. * * * These various tribes * *
owing more or less supreme allegiance to the ruler whose
metropolis was Serai on the Volga, and the whole were
comprised in the phrase the Golden Horde."

The following is taken from the Preface : "In these
four chapters I have endeavoured to trace out the story of
the original conquest of Russia during the Tartar domination
* * * and have tried to point out how far the conquest
has affected the history and the social economy of that great
and interesting empire. I have also tried to show how during
the Tartar supremacy the south of Russia, under the in-
fluence of a strong rule, was the focus of a vast trade and
culture, and the means by which Cairo, Baghdad and Peking
were brought into very close contact with Venice, Genoa
and the Hanseatic towns. "

The story of the Middle Ages is really the story of
a Greater Asia.

Asiatic genius has ever been aggressive. The achieve-
ments of that Aggressive Asia are to be noticed- not only in

236 CHINESE RELIGION

the victories of war but also in the ' ' more glorious ' ' victories
of peace. It is not the purpose of this work to indicate
even in brief outline the landmarks in the story of those
victories ; or exhibit the various threads of Hindu-Islamic
intercourse, on the one hand, and of Indo-Mofigol, on the
other, which brought about the simple but composite web
of Asiatic life. Nor would the more .important contribu-
tions of the Chinese to world's culture during the most
brilliant epoch of their history detain us. I shall only give
a picture of the common Asiatic fountain of religious ideas
and conventions which was set up under the Tang and
Sung Bmperors and has since then been quenching the
spiritual thirst of eight hundred million souls in San-goku,
i.e. , the /kree countries, China, Japan and India. It would,
however, be necessary to have before us a chronology of
events for the period from A.D. 600 to A.D. 1250.

Section 2.
San-goku, i.e., " CONCERT OF AsiA."
It may be mentioned at the outset that an idea of
Asiatic unity is evident from the Japanese word San-goku
which is a common term embracing the three peoples. Such
a phrase as "So and so is San-goku ichi, i.e., the first in the
three regions' ' is very common in Japan. It indicates the
Yamato consciousness of a common standard of merit and
■efficiency as governing the Japanese, Chinese and Hindus.
San-goku may be thus taken to be the Asiatic equivalent of
what in modern times is known as the "Concert of Europe."

{a) The World-tourists of Medieval Asia
The idea of a '* Concert of Asia" may be regarded as
having been well established during the epoch we have been
considering. We may look upon Hiuen Thsang as the great

THE WORLD-TOURISTS OF MEDIEVAL ASIA 237

embodiment of tliat idea. The six hundred years that had
elapsed between Mingti's dream and this Chinese scholar-
saint's pilgrimage to India had led up to this conception
which on Japanese soil became crystallised as San-goku.

We have already remarked that the period of so-called
anarchy in China was a great period in her religious history,
both Taoist and Confucian as well as Buddhist. It was
marked also by the travels of Kumarajiva the Indian and
Fa-Hien the Chinese. The consciousness of a common world
of life and thought was greatly promoted by the journey-
ings to and fro of men like these. The number of such
travellers during the four centuries was not insignificant.
The following list is being given from Seal's account in his
Buddhist Literature in China compiled from Chinese
sources.

Wei Dynasty (A.D. 220-60)

(1) Dharmakala, an Indian. (2) Kong-Sang-Kai, a
man of India. (3) Tan-ti, a Parthian, (4) Pih-yen, a
man of the western* countries. (5) An-fa-hien.

Wu Dynasty (A.D. 222-64)

(1) Chi-hieu, a Hun. (2) Wei-chi-lan, an Indian. (3)
Chu-liu-yen, a fellow-traveller of the last. (4) Kong-sang-
ui, a man of Samarcand. (5) Chi-Kiang, a man of the
.west.

Western Tsin Dynasty (A.D. 265-313)

(1) Dharmaraksha, a Hun. (2) Kiang-liang-lu-chi,
a man of the west. (3) An-fa-Kin, a Parthian. (4) Won-lo-
yan-che, a man of Khoten. (5) Chu-shuh-lan, a man of the
west. (6) Pih-fa-tsu of Kong-niu (Within the River). (7)
Chi-fa-to. (8) Shih-tao-chi. (9) Fa-lih.

* India.

238 CHINESE REWGION

Eastern Tsin (Capital Kien Kang)

(1) Pi-si-li-mih-to-lo (Srimitra), a man of the western
■countries. (2) Chi-to-lin. (3) Chu-tan-won-lan (Dhar-
mananda) , a man of the western world. (4) Kiu-tan-sang-
kia-ti-po (Gotamasangha Deva) a man of Cophene (Kabul).
(5) Kia-lan-to-kia (Kaludaka) a man of the west. (6)
Kang-tao. (7) Fo-to-po-to-lo (Buddhabhadra) , a man of
Kapilavastu and a descendant of Aniritodana Raja (the
uncle of Sakyamuni) . (8) Tan-ma-pi. (9") Pi-mo-lo-cha
(Vimalaksha), a man of Cophene. (10) F*a-hien. (11)
Chi-ma-to, a western man. (12) Nanda, a man of the west.
(13) Chu-fa-lih, a man of the west. (14) Kao-Kung. (15)
Shih-lang kung. (16) Shih-fa-yung. (17) Tan-mo-chi. (18)
Shii-hwei-shang. (19) Kiu-mo-lo-fo-te (Kumarabodhi),
a western man. (20) Sang-kia-po-ching, a Cophene (Kabul)
man. (21) Tan-mo-ping, an Indian. (22) Dharmananda
aTurk(?)

Yaou Thsin Period (Capital Changan)

(1) Chu-fo-nien. (2) Tan-mo-ye-she (Dharmayasas), a
Cophene man. (3) Kumdrajiva, originally a man of India
but afterwards of Karashar. (4) Fo-to-ye-she, a Cophene
man. (5) Fo-ye-to-lo (Punyatara), a Cophene man. (6)
Fa-kin. (7) Shih-tan-hioh. (8) Kih-kia-ye (Kakaya) , a
man of the west.

Northern Liang (Capital Ku-tsang)

(1) Shih-tao-kung. (2) Fa-Chung, a man of Turfan.
(3) Sang-kia-to, a man of the west. (4) Tan-mo-tsien
(Dharmakshya), a man of mid-India. (5) Buddhavarma,
a man of the west (A.D. 450). (6) Shi-chi-mang.

THE WORLD-TOURISTS OF MEDIEVAL ASIA 239

Sung Dynasty (Capital Kien Kang)
(l) Buddhajiva, a man of Cophene. (2) Tan-mo-mi -to
(Dharmamitra), a Cophene man. (3) Kalayasas, a western.
(4^ I-ych-po-to (Iswara), a man of the west. (5) Sheh-chi-
yan. (6) Gunavarma, a man of Cophene (A.D. 440).
(7) Gunabhadra, a man of mid-India (A.D. 436). (8)
Dharmavira (A.D. 420-53). (9) Chu-fa-chuen, an Indian
(A.D. 465).

Tsi Dynasty (Capital Kien Kang)

(1) Tan-mo-kia-to-ye-she (Dharmajatayasas) , a man
of India. (2) Mo-ho-shing (Mahayana), from the west
(A.D. 490). (3) Sanghabhadra, from the west (A.D. 489).
(4) Dharmamati, a man of the west (A.D. 491). (5)
Gunavati, a man of India (A.D. 493).

Southern Wei Dynasty.
(Capital Loyang)

(1) Dharmaruchi of South India (A.D. 504), (2)
Bodhiruchi of North India (A.D. 508), (3) Le-na-mo-ti
(Ratnamati) of mid^India (A.D. 508), (4) Buddhasanda,,
of North India (A.D. 525).

Liang Dynasty.

(Capital, Kieng Kang)

(1) Mandala of Cambodia (A. D. 504), (2) Sanghavarma
(of Cambodia 502), (3) Paramita (of Ujjein, A.D. 549).

Eastern Wei Dynasty.
(Capital Keng Nieh)

Gotamaprajnaruchi (of South India, bom in Benares;
A.D. 542)

240 CHINESE RELIGION

Tsi Dynasty.
(Capital Nieh)

Nalandayasas (of North India, 569)

Chen Dynasty.
(Capital, Nieh)

The son of the King of the country of Ujjein named
Upasena.

Chow Dynasty.
(Capital Changan)

(1) Jnanabhadra (A.D. 560), (2) Jnanayasas from
Magadha (A.D. 572), (3) Yasakuta, a man from Udyana
(A.D. 578), (4) Jnanaknta from Gandhara (A.D. 588), (5)
Dharmaprajna (583), (6) Vinataruchi (of Udyana, 583), (7)
Dharmagupta (S. India, 591).

The list is not exhaustive, Bunyiu Nanjio's Catalogue
oj the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka^ the
Sacred Canon of the Buddhists in China and Japan may be
referred to.

These are the names of scholars, lay as well as
clerical, and Chinese as well as foreign, who settled
in various parts of China to translate and propagate Indian
thought during the four hundred years between Han and
Tang Dynasties. It is, therefore, natural that when the
great Renaissance commenced under the unified rule of the
mighty Tangs all this literature should have become the
food of the master-minds of China. They got used to
thinking not in terms of China alone but of the great
western land of the Hindus as well. And when the great
Hiuen Thsang, " the Max Muller of his day," came back
to his people, the conception of the Indo-Chinesie world as a
single unit became, as it were, a first postulate with them.

SINO-INDIC, SINO-ISLAMIC AND SINO-JAPAKESE 241

Hiuen Thsang came back in A.D. 645, and It-sing,
another equally famous pilgrim, went out on a tour in 671
which lasted for 24 years. His diary has been translated by
Dr. Takakusu : A Record of the Buddhist Religion as
pi-actised in India and the Malay Archipelago. In it we
get an account of no less than sixty Chinese Buddhist
pilgrims who visited India in the latter half of the 7th
century. It is thus not difficult to see why the Tang epoch
of Chinese history was a great age for the unity of Asia.

(3) Sino-Indic, Sino-Islamic and Sino- Japanese
Sea-borne Trade

It was not only an age of foreign travel but an
epoch of brisk foreign commerce as well with every people in
Asia. In fact, the journeyings of those Asia- 'trotters' were
made possible through the establishment of well-laid-out
routes between country and country. The routes were both
overland and maritime.

It is needless to observe that the " Asia-sense " was
promoted not only through the culture-missionaries, truth-
seekers and religious pilgrims, but also through the commer-
cial agents, brokers, sailors and speculative adventurers.

The sea-trade of the Asiatic peoples was, of course,
facilitated by their shipping and navigation.. Mookerji's
History of Indian Maritime Activity frovi the earliest times
throws a flood of light on this aspect of the question during
the period under survey. During the Tang age the command
of the Indian Ocean was maintained by the powerful fleet of
the Chola Emperors in Southern India.

The shipping was international. Both the Arabs
on the West and the Chinese on the Bast were
equally adept in using the highway of the seas. The

242 CHINESE RELIGION

following is taken from Hirth and Rockhill's Chau Ju-kua:
"The pilgrim Fa Hien, the first Chinese who has left
a record of a voyage from India to China (A.D. 413),
canae from Tamlook at the mouth of the Ganges to Ceylon
to sail for Sumatra, and when in Ceylon he noted the signs
of wealth of the ' Sa-po traders ' on the island, and it does
not seem unlikely that these foreigners were Arabs from
Hadramant and Oman coasts." It is to be noted that
Fa-Hien's fellow-passengers from Java to Canton were
Po-lo-mon or Brahmans.

Further, Cosmas in the sixth century says of Ceylon:
" The Island being, as it is, in a central position is much
frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia
and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends out many of its own.
And from the remotest countries, I mean Tzinista (China)
and other trading places, * * * while at the same time
exporting its own produce in both directions. ' '

The present position of Ceylon as the great port of call
for world's shipping has thus been a historic one, coming
down from the age when the Asiatic waters were navigated
by their natural masters.

A history of Chinese maritime activity would show that
the Celestial enterprise in navigation probably manifested
itself a little later than that of the Arabs and Hindus.
According to Hirth and Rockhill — "Notwithstanding the
lack of enterprise on the part of the Chinese in the first
centuries of the Christian era, * * * commerce by sea
with south-eastern Asia and the countries lying to the
west was steadily increasing through the continued energy
and enterprise of the Arabs and the Indians. "

SINO-INDIC, SINO-ISLAMIC AND SINO-JAPANESE 243",

But the sea-voyages of the Chinese became considerable
tinder the Tangs. It-sing mentions 60 Chinese pilgrims who,
in the latter part of the seventh century made the journey-
to India. Of these 22 travelled overland and 37 took the
sea-route. The following itinerary is described iii the Intro-
duction to Chau-Ju-kUa: " * * The port of erhbarkation
being Canton, whence the travellers made western Java or
more usually Palembang in Sumatra. Here they changed'
ships and taking a course along the northern coast of
Sumatra and by the Nicobar Islands,- came to Ceylon, where.,
they usually took ship for Tamlook at the mouth of the
Ganges and thence reached the holy places of India by
land. The voyage took about three months, one month
from Canton to Palembang, one to the northwest point of
Sumatra and one to Ceylon ; it was always made with the
northeast monsoon in winter, and the return voyage to
China in summer, — from April to October — with the south-
west monsoon. ' '

The "Asia-sense" of the Chinese, so far as it was
developed through international commerce, was steadily
on the increase during the 8th and 9th centuries, may
have been a little retarded owing to the disorder following
the fall of the Tangs, but revived in the 10th centurj'
"when they carried on direct trade with the Arabs, the
Malay peninsula, Tongking, Siam, Java, western Sumatra,
western Borneo and certain of the Philippine Islands. "
The more important ports like Canton and Tsuan-chou
near Amoy began to have prosperous settlements of per-
manent Hindu and especially Moslem residents. The
importance of Islam* in Chinese life during the 9th and

* It need be remarked incidentally that the Capital Singanfu received dur-
ing this age Christian and Zoroastrian exiles who fled from their West Asian
homes to escape the persecution of the Islamites.

244 CHINESE RELIGION

subsequent centuries would be evident from the following
statement: "From Chinese sources we learn that * *
at Tsuan-chou, Hang-chou and elsewhere, the Moslems had
their kadi and their sheikhs, their mosques and their
bazaars." The institution of the Inspectorate of Maritime
Trade at Canton, Kangshi (the capital), Tsuan-chou, Hang-
chou and Minchou, also indicates the larger social life of
the Celestials.

Chau Ju Kua was the Inspector of Foreign Trade at
Tsuan-chou in Fukien in the latter part of the 12th century.
His Ch7i-Jait-chi or ' Description of the Barbarous Peoples '
tells of what the Chinese at the beginning of the 12th
;entury knew of the foreign countries, peoples and products
of Eastern and Southern Asia, Africa and Europe. It
precedes by about a century the account given by Marco
Polo of Venice (1260) and "fills a gap in our knowledge of
China's relations with the outside world extending from the
Arab writers of the ninth and tenth centuries to the days
of the great Venetian traveller. ' ' The English translation
of this work by Hirth and Rockhill published by the
Imperial Academy of Sciences, Petrograd, is of inestimable
value to students of international commerce in Mediaeval
Asia.

When Japan entered upon the scene the Indo-Chinese
world was expanded by the addition of a third member. The
triple alliance of culture thus effected was the San-goku.
Every Japanese thought in terms of the three regions, not
of his native land alone. It was not enough, according to
their conception, for any person to attain the highest position
only in Japan. The most ambitious among them must
have his worth recognised by China and India too. An

SINO-INDIC, SINO-ISLAMIC AND SINO-JAPANESE 245

international or Asiatic standard of science or Vidyas
governed the aspiration of all Japan. San-goku is thus a
suggestive technical term contributed by the Japanese to
the literature of world's international science.

It has to be observed that, culturally speaking, the heart
of this Concert of Asia was Hindusthan, Tienchu or Tenjiku
i.e. Heaven ; but geographically, the heart was China. This
" middle kingdom " may or may not be the middle of the
whole world as the Chinese have believed it to be ; but it was
surely the middle or centre of San-goku. The Chinese re-
ceived Hindusthan into their midst and then passed it for-
ward to the Land of the Rising Sun. The first process was
Indo-Chinese, and the second Sino- Japanese. It is doubtful
if there w^as much direct Indo-Japanese intercourse. The
Japanese depended for their Hinduism principally on their
neighbours.

We know definitely that cotton was introduced into Japan
from India. Prof. Takakusu in his paper on ' What Japan
owes to hidia' in the Journal of Indo-Japanese Association
(1910), states that cotton was introduced into Japan through
the Indians who were unfortunately carried over to that
country by the ' 'black current." The following is taken from
yiof^txyL s Indian Shipping : "The eighth volume of the
Nikon -ko-ki r&corA.s how in July 799 a foreigner was washed
ashore in a little boat somewhere on the southern coast of
Mikwa province in Japan. He confessed himself to be a
man from Tenjiku, as India was then called in Japan. Among
the effects was found something like grass seeds, which
proved to be no other than some seeds of the cotton-plant.
Again, it is written in the 199th chapter of Ruijti-kokushi
(another official record) that a man from Kuen-lum was

246 CHINESE RELIGION

cast upon Japanese shores in April 800, and that the cotton
seeds he had brought with him were sown in the provinces
of Ku, Awoji^ Sanuki, lyo, Tosa and Kyushu. "

We hear also of Brahman Bishops corning to Japan
from countries other than China. But probably there are
few evidences to connect them with India. They may have
been Hindus from Annam, Cambodia or Indo-China. The
principal reservoir of Indiaiiism for Japan always remained
China. ^j . r . ..^-,

It is for this reason that we find innumerable materials
for the history of -India in China and Chinese literature; and
materials for Chinese history in the Japanese and Chinese
literature of Japan. The Island ^Empire thus happens to be
the repository or museum of the Indo-Chinese world. It is
perfectly natural, therefore, that San-goku, the technical
term comprehending the three countries, should exist in
the Japanese currency of thought.

Section 3.

The "Great Powers" of San-goku.

The political history of China during this period falls
into two divisions.

1. The Tang Dynasty ruled from A.D. 618 to 905.
Tai Tsung (627-50) is the most illustrious Emperor of this
dynasty and is one of the Chinese Napoleons. He was the
patron of Hiuen Thsang.

2. The Sung Dynasty ruled over the whole Empire
from A.D. 960 to 1127. In 1128 the northern half down
to the Yangtse was conquered by the Tartars, who establish-

. ed their capital near the site of modern Peking. The Sung
Dynasty continued to rule the southern half of China down
to 1279 with capital first at Nanking, then at Hangchow.

THE " GREAT POWERS " Op SAN-GOKU 247

The political strength and military achievements of the
Tangs could not be maintained by the Sungs. But the
people of China carried forward the intellectual and spiritual
development of the 7th and 8th centuries down to the end of
the period. So that the whole age was one of continuous
cultural growth and expansion. In fact, the most brilliant
era of Chinese literature, art and philosophy coincided with
the last days of the Sungs.

The important landmarks in the political history of
Japan are being indicated below:

1. From A.D. 552 to 710 the centre of government
and culture was in the province of Asuka. This is,
practically speaking, chronologically the first period of
Japanese history. The most illustrious name is that of
Prince Shotoku Taishi (A.D. 573-621), who was regent for
the reigning Queen Suiko. During this period the scholar
Dosho is said to have come to China in 653 to study
Hinduism with Hiuen Thsang after his return from India
in 645. Thus the conception of San-goku was forced upon
Japan in her very infancy.

2. TheNara Period (from 710 to 794) was synchronous
with the period of Tang strength in China. The capital
was removed to Nara near Osaka.

3. The Kyoto Period (782-1192) came down to the
dismemberment of Chinese Empire under the weaker Sungs.
The capital was transferred from Nara to Kyoto, which
remained the Imperial seat till the beginning of the new era
in the middle of the 19th century. Kyoto is thus the Delhi of
the Japanese. During this period the famous scholar-saint
K6b5 Daishi visited China (804-806) and came back to his
native land to establisji the Indo-Chinese culture on a
thoroughly national basis. , :

248 CHINESE RELIGION

The Nara and Kyoto periods are sometimes called the
Fujiwara period because at both these centres the Fujiwara
aristocracy lorded it over the whole administration. This
period is of extraordinary interest to students of San-goku-
culture, because specimens of Chinese life during its most
brilliant epoch (and therefore of the Hindu also) are still
preserved in the Japanese art of the age, but are lost else-
where. Japan, thanks to her insular position like that of
England, has been saved from the ravages of foreign con-
quests which have come upon her continental neighbours;
and thus has been able to maintain intact the mediaeval
civilisation of Asia represented by the Kalidasas and Fa-
Hiens of Vikramadityan Renaissance.

5. Kainakura Period began with the establishment of
the Shogunate or military Viceroyalty at Kamakurd in 1192.
The Emperor became a political cipher and remained
virtually a prisoner at Kyoto until the glorious Restoration
of 1868.

In India the political life of the period has to be studied
in the following more important Empires :

1. The Empire of Harshavardhana who reigned in
Upper India from 606 to 647. He was thus the contem-
porary of Tai Tsung and also of Prince Shotoku. Hiuen
Thsang was the state-guest (629-45) of the Hindus under
this monarch.

2. The Empire of the Chalukyas (550-753) in the
Deccan. The most illustrious monarch of this dynasty was
Pulakesin II (608-55) who inflicted a defeat on the northern
Emperor Harshavardhana and thus maintained the sov-
ereignty of the Southern Empire. Hiuen-Thsang visited
his court in 641. Pulakesin II is important to students of

THE GREAT POWERS" OF SAN-GOKU 249

art-history because some of the world-renowned paintings in
the cave-temples of Ajanta were executed during his reign,
e.g.^ those relating to Indo-Persian embassies.

3. The Empire of the Gurjara-Pratiharas at Kanauj
in Upper India (A.D. 816-1194). Vincent Smith remarks :
" Mihira, usually known by his title Bhoja, enjoyed a long
reign of about half a century (t 840-90) and beyond question
was a very powerful monarch, whose dominions may be
called an ' empire ' without exaggeration.' '

4. The Empire of the Bengalees under the Pala
Dynasty (A.D. 730-1175) in Eastern India. Vincent Smith
remarks: "The Pala dynasty deserves remembrance as
one of the most remarkable of Indian djmasties. No other
royal line, save that of the Andhras, endured so long for
four and a half centuries. Dharmapala and Devapala
succeeded in making Bengal one of the great powers of
India."

A complete history of this 'great power' by Prof.
RikhaldS.s Banerji written in Bengali language has been
recently published at Calcutta. The Pala age is important
in the history of Tibet as having supplied her with Bengali
art and Tantric* literature. Dharmapala and Devapala,
whose reign extended from 780 to 892, were the Tai Tsungs
of Bengal.

5. The Empire of the Cholas in Southern India (900-
1300). The most illustrious monarchs of this dynasty
were Rajaraja the Great (985-1018) and Rajendrachola

*See Principles of Tantra by Avalon (Luzac & Co. , t/ondon) ; R&mkrishna:
His Life and Teachings by Max MuUer; Kdll, the Mother by Nivedita
(Longmans) , and also the account of Tantric alchemy in Ray's History of Hindu
Chemistry.

•250 CHINESE REI/IGION

(1018-1035) . The Cholas possessed a powerful navy, which
led to the annexation of a large number of islands and the
kingdom of Pegu in Further India across the Bay of
Bengal. Mr. S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar's Ancient India
is the most authoritative and complete work on Chola
Dynasty and South Indian history available in English.

Section 4.

Indianisation of Confucianism,

The intercourse between India and China during this
period is thus described by Okakura :

' 'Communication with India becomes more facilitated by
the extension of the empire on the Pamirs, and the number
of pilgrims to the land of Buddha as well as the influx
of Indians into China, grows greater every day. * * *
The newly opened route through Tibet, which had been
conquered by Taiso,* added a fourth line of communication
to the former routes by Tensan and the sea. There were at
one time in L,oyang (Honanfu) itself, to impress their
national religion and art on Chinese soil, more than three
thousand Indian monks and ten thousand Indian families ;
their great influence may be judged from their having given
phonetic values to the Chinese ideographs, a movement
which, in the eighth century, resulted in the creation of
the present Japanese alphabet. "

Hiuen Thsaug had witnessed the processions, mystery-
plays, and other folk-festivals patronised by Emperor
Harshavardhana at Kanauj and Allahabad. The educative
influence of these institutions worked upon his imagination;
and it is likely that on his return to China he may have

* Japanese name of Emperor Tai Tsung.

INDIANISATION OF CONFUCIANISM 251

played some part in the organisation of the popular dances,
ballets and other amusements* which began to be important
features of Chinese life under the Tangs.

Mr. Werner quotes from the Contemporary Review,
(XXXVII.. 123): "It was not until the sixth century
-A.D. that some travelling gymnasts from India initiated the
people into the delights of the rude pantomimic dances and
acrobatic performances of their native land." The French
scholar Bazin's Theatre Chinoise throws interesting light
on the history of games, festivals, ballets and pantomimes
of China. Hindu influence is also suggested by scholars as
having given the final shape to the drama which has. been
played in China since the time of the Tangs.

The following are the names of some of the Hindu
scholars in China who helped It-sing in the propaganda
work among his people early in the 8.th century :

( 1 ) Anijana, a priest from Northern India

( 2 ) Dharmamatma, priest from Tukhara

(3) Dharm^nanda, ,, ,, Cophene

(4) Sringisha, layman from Eastern India

(5) Gotamavajra ,,, ,, ,, ,,

(6) Hrimati

(.7) Arjun, Prince of Cashmere.

The list is taken from Seal's Buddhist Literature t7t
China.

It is thus easy to understand why the whole world of
Chinese letters and art should become Hinduised during
their great age of Renaissance. Giles' History of Chinese
Literature may be referred to for specimens of Tang and
Sung thought in prose and verse. The following is from

* The "No "-plays which became popular in Japan in the 14th century
, may have to be traced ultimately to Hindusthfl.n.

252 CHINESE RELIGION

Cranmer-Byng' s Lute of fade : * 'Po Chii-i (A. D. 772-846)
is above all the poet of human love and sorrow, and beyond
all the consoler. Those who profess to find pessimism
in the Chinese character must leave him alone. At the
end of the great tragedy of The Never-ending Wrong, a
whispered message of hope is borne to the lonely soul beat-
ing against the confines of the visible world :

'Tell my lord,'

She murmured, 'to be firm of heart as this

Gold and enamel ; then in heaven or earth

Below, we twain may meet once more.'
It is the doctrine of eternal constancy, so dimly under-
stood in the Western world, which bids the young wife
immolate herself on her husband's tomb rather than marry
again, and makes the whole world seem too small for the
stricken Bmperor with all the youth and beauty of China to
command."

The Hindu, with his idealism of the 6'«/'^-institution
which expresses itself in the determination of the widow not
to re-marry, would easily understand this. Nivedita's Web
of Indian Life and An Indian story of Love and Death give
excellent Bnglish studies in Hindu womanhood.

The result of the influx of Hindu ideas, institutions
and practices was not confined solely to the popularisation of
the Buddha-cult. The original Chinese ideas on every
subject began also to be transformed, re-interpreted and
Hinduised. The Augustan age of Chinese Culture was
thus the age of a thorough -going Indianisation of China.

It must be understood that this Indianising affected not
the religious sphere exclusively, but led also to the introduc-
tion of the secular vidyas or sciences, and kalas or arts. We
have seen in the previous chapter that the Hindu Renaissance

INDIANISATION OF CONFUCIANISM 253

begintiing witli the Vikramadityans of the 4tli century and
continuing through the succeeding centuries was as great
in matters spiritual as in secular, economic, political and
international. Influences emanating from India during
this great age of China were, therefore, not likely to be one-
sided. Smith's paper on Indian sculpture of the Gupta
Period (300-650) may be referred to in the Ostasiatische
Zettschrifi.

Tho. Journal of the Peking Oriental Society (ii 228) is
quoted by Werner :

' ' It remained for the authors of the Tdng dynasty to
combine Taoism and Confucianism with a mixture of Bud-
dhism, in a newly created poetry which was destined to
raise literary art to a higher elevation that it had ever
attained in China."

An instance of Hinduised Taoism is being given from
the Transactions of the China Branch of Royal Asiatic
Society, V. 83-98.

A Sung Bmperor of the tenth century addressed the
following rhapsody to Lao-tsze :

* ' Great and most excellent Tau

Not created, self- existent ;

From eternity to eternities

Antecedent to the earth and heaven,

Like all-pervading light.

Continuing through eternity :

Who gave instruction to Confucius in the Kast

And called into existence Buddha in the West.

Director of all kings ;

Parent of all sages ;

Originator of all religions ;

Mystery of Mysteries."

254 CHINESE RELIGION

Indianism touched not only Taoism but also had a
profound influence on traditional Confucianism. The Con-'
fucianism that has been prevalent in China for the last eight
or nine hundred years is markedly different from the older
one, and was bom in the atmosphere of the Hindu Culture'
which prevailed under the Tangs and Sungs. Edkins has
described the effect of Buddhism on the philosophy of the
Sung Dynasty in chapter xx of his Chinese Buddhism.

About this neo-Confucianism a Japanese scholar .writes
in A7t Official Guide to Eastern Asia, Vol. FV, China,
prepared by the Imperial Japanese Government Railways :
' ' With the establishment of the Sung D5masty * * *
appeared philosophers who in expounding the classics
brought to their aid certain cosmic and metaphysical ideas
of India. * * *

Chu Hsi (1130-1200) is regarded as the founder of the
Sung school of Confucianism. And whatever influence
Confucianism exercised — and it has been great — in the train-
ing of a nation like Japan, must be largely ascribed to the
works of this great philosopher and commentator. ' '

Hindu Dhyana or meditation is the chief characteristic
of this re-interpreted Confucianism.

The art of painting as well as the criticism of that art
were also being influenced by the new philosophy which
finally received an authoritative stamp from Chu Hsi. The
following is quoted from the section on "Art in the times of
the Five Dynasties and of the Sung Dynasty (907-1279) "
in the Japanese Official Guide: " Criticism, under the in-
fluence of the new subjective philosophy of the Sung period,
took a fresh turn. Kuo To-hsu (in the Northern Sung
Period) interpreted Chi-yun (life of the painting) in a sub-
jective way, and pointed out that in the case of all kinds of

INDIANISATION OF CONFUCIANISM 255.

painting, whether of animate or inanimate objects, the Chi-
yun apparent in them was the personality of the painter.
He said that an artist of noble character was sure to im-
press his personality on his production and that no skill in
the technique could ever confer the refinement and grace
which Chi-yun implied. He finally came to a bold con-
clusion that in true art there was no need of technique.
* * * Su Shih (1036-1101) and Huang Shan-ku (1045-
1105) * * * both held the opinion that the object of
painting was not to make a sketch of the external appear-
ance of things, but to give intimation of the life and power
immanent in nature."

The dhvana-€iQ.vfMtVL\. in art is thus emphasised in the
Hindu work, Sukraniti {JS . iv. 147-9): "The charactetistic
of an image is its power of helping forward contemplation and
Yoga. The human maker of images should, therefore, be
meditative. Besides meditation there is no other way of
knowing the character of an image — even direct observation
(is of no use). " Here, then, is the fountain-head* of the
neo-Confucianist art.

The Japanese term for Dhyana is Zen. That this sub-
jective philosophy of Meditation did not promote imbecility
in secular life would be evident from the importance that the
Buddhist scholars of Japan attach to the Z^^-f actor in the
interpretation of their Bushido or Kshairiyaisra. It may be
equally argued that Hindu Samurat-viorality or Militarism
was also strengthened by the element of Samyama, i.e.,
temperance or self-restraint, involved in Dhyana or Yoga
discipline.

There is one fact about this Hinduisation of Asia which
the most superficial student of mediaeval history must notice.
Indian missionising in foreign countries —

*See Xvaufer's Das Citralakshana in the Ost-Zeit. (January — March, 1914.)

256 CHINESE RELIGION

(1) was not backed up or preceded by military,
political or punitive demonstrations of any sort on behalf of
the Indian States ;

(2) was not carried on at the point of the bayonet or
of the machine-gun or with the offer of inducements to a
better socio-economic life ;

(3) did not imply the direct or indirect domination of
a " superior" race over semi-savage tribes or the so-called
" arrested " sections of mankind.

It was, in fact, not a visible expression of Hindu
Secular Power or the Might of the Indian State. Rather,
the apostles of Hindu. Culture consecrated their lives to the
service of humanity. They

(1) adapted themselves to the manners, customs,
sentiments and prejudices of the communities which they
adopted as their own, thereby obliterating the distinction
between alien and native ;

(2) were absolutely non-political and non-commercial
representatives of their mother-land, casting their lot with
the " flock" which they came to tend ;

(3) were deliberately accepted as gurus or preceptors
by the first-class civilised Powers and the greatest in-
tellectuals among their peoples, who wanted fresh light upon
their problems.

Hinduising was thus the transmission of a new life and
a new love from an equal to an equal. An "age of
chivalry" was that.

Section 5.

"Ringing Grooves of Change" in Asia

Prof. Takakusu makes the following remarks on Japanese
Buddhism in The Fifty Years of New Japan issued by Count

RINGING GROOVES OF CHANGE" IN ASIA 257

Okuma as a manifesto for Japanese Culture after the
event of 1905 :

"It was not, therefore, a mere transplanting of the
Buddhism of India, China, Annam, or of Korea, but a new
and distinct form of religion. * * *

Thus Buddhism in Japan has never remained inactive
or become effete, but reaction has followed reaction, and
reformation reformation — a constant refining and remodel-
ling going on to meet the needs of the people. * * *
The old religion cannot satisfy thirsty souls, and this
generation requires of the Buddhists not only new activities
in their religion, but constantly renewed activity. * * *
And if this ancient religion is to come forth into the arena
of the twentieth century with fresh vigour and activity, and
preach new glad-tidings to the world, it will be the Bud-
dhism * * * of Japan."

To say that the Buddhism of Japan differs from that of
China and of India, or that the Japanese Buddhism of the
twentieth century will differ from that of the nineteenth as
that again has differed from all previous, is to take a perfect-
ly scientific attitude with regard to human civilisation.

A similar philosophic view about Christianity has been
put into the mouth of Mr. "Little Boston" by the American
humorist Oliver Wendell Holmes in his Professor at the
Breakfast- Table :

"The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather
late in the world's history for men to be looking out for a
new faith.

I didn't say a new faith, — said the Little Gentleman ;
— old or new, it can't help being different here in this
American mind of ours from anything that ever was before ;

258 CHINESE RELIGION

the people are new, Sir, and that makes the difference. * * *
* * * There was a great raft built about two thousand
years ago, — call it an ark, rather, — the world's great
ark I * * *

It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched.
The Jordan was not deep enough, and the Tiber was not
deep enough, and the Rhone was not deep enough, and the
Thames was not deep enough. " * * *

"It must be done. Sir! — he was saying, — it must be
done ! Our religion has been Judaized, it has been
Romanized, it has been Orientalized, it has been Anglicized,
and the time is at hand when it must be Americanized! "

One might be inclined to smile over these outbursts of
local patriotism, but it is impossible to deny the influence of
Place and Race on Ideas.

Asiatic Culture is one, but is richly varied. It has
grown from epoch to epoch and has changed in its trans-
plantation from the banks of the Indus and the Ganges to
the shores of the Hwang-ho and the Yang-tse, and thence
again to those of the Yodo-gawa and the Sumida-gawa.
Unfortunately, however, scholars of the last century have
been pleased to explain the whole history of Asia by such
poetic and sonorous expressions as "unchanging Bast" or
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."
They have yet to learn that Asiatic history is as dynamic and
as good a record of changes as the history of Kurope.

Compared with the revolutionary changes that the
world has witnessed since the Industrial Revolution of the
second and third decades of the nineteenth century, the
changes in previous five millenniums must be regarded as
insignificant. It may be said that the world had not chang-

((

RINGING GROOVES OF CHANGE IN ASIA 259

ed SO mucli from the age of the Pharaohs down to 1815 as it
has changed during the last hundred years. Thus consider-
ed, Ancient and Mediasval Kurope down to 1815 must be
treated as statical and unchanging, without any fundamental
difference from Gathay, the proverbial land of sloth and con-
servatism. "Fifty years of Kurope" in the 19th century
are "better" than any cycle of Europe in the 17th, 16th,
15 th and previous centuries.

Orientalists, sociologists and philosophers should, there-
fore, remember that it is not safe to take a Tennyson or a
Whitman as the guide for historico-comparative investiga-
tions.

It was an altogether extraordinary state of things that
Tennyson lived to see. The following remarks about his
age—

' ' When more and more the people throng

The chairs and thrones of civil power,

When science reaches forth her arms
To feel from world to world, and charms

Her secret from the latest moon,"
could not be made with regard to any previous age in
Kuropean history.

Tennyson's optimism was a product of the age which
everywhere ' ' rang out the old " "to ring in the new. " He
was writing of the "forward range" and "the ringing
grooves of change," while the whole "old order" was
crumbling down before his eyes, and the new order was
apparently carrying everybody headlong to "that far-off
divine event to which the whole creation moves.' '

The impulse of the age was equally potent in stimulat-
ing the imagination of Whitman when he wrote :

260 ' ' Chinese; religion

"The immortal poets of Asia and Europe have done

their work and pass'd to other spheres.
A work remains, the work of surpassing all they have
done."
It was an age when the New Englanders of the Bast
coast were expanding towards the "middle West," "farther
West" and "farthest West." In that colonising period every
Yankee could talk glibly :

"For we cannot tarry here.

We mnst march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt

of danger.
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us

depend.

'^ Pioneers ! O pioneers!

* * *

Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there

beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the
lesson.

Pioneers ! O pioneers !

All the past we leave behind.

We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied

world.
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labour

and the march,

Pioneers ! O pioneers !"
Any one in his cooler moments would see that these
lines describe extraordinary conditions. . The lofty flights of
idealism and progressivism in the -English poet-laureate of

RINGING GROOVES OF CHANGE" IN ASIA 261

the Darwinian age and the American poet of the colonising
period do not supply the norm by which to express the
character of Kxir-american civilisation previous to the epoch-
making changes. They cannot be sutras for the West
down to 1815. The poet's dicta^ therefore, should not be
the formitlas with which to begin the study of Asiatic
Culture. Unbiassed students of facts would find in the
history of both Asia and Europe almost the same statical
or dynamical pictures. Similarly the last "fifty years of
new Japan' ' do not represent the previous fifteen hundred
years.

Remarkable achievements and extraordinary successes
of one's own generation may lead rhapsodists to poetise
over one's race-history and race-destiny; but scientists
must not forget to place them in their historical setting
and read them in the light of the perspective. As it is,
all the social sciences have been vitiated by poetry and
race-pride during the last fifty years.

When Tennyson wrote " Cathay' ' he knew as much of
China as we know of the moon. If anybody had suggested
to him the name of "Mackay" or of "Pankhay," it would have
suited the rhythm of his verse quite well ; and as for readers,
they would have to consult a Dictionary of Unfamiliar Names
for ' Cathay ' as well as for the others.

But a poet never errs. Therefore the verse is now the
basis of sober history and the starting-point of race-theories.
Thus an author begins his Introduction to the History of
England with the following syllogism : ' ' History is a record
of changes. The Asiatic peoples have no history, because
they have had no changes. ' '

CHAPTER X.

Japanese Religious Consciousness

Section I.

Toleration and Liberty of Conscience.

We have noticed that neither the Hindus nor the
Chinese have ever been intolerant bigots. "Live and let
live" has been generally their motto in matters of faith.
The " individuality " which John Stuart Mill advocates in
his Liberty may be regarded as the keynote of religious life
among the Far Bastern races. Japan also has exhibited in
her history the same spirit of freedom and toleration.
Eclecticism and Syntheticism are the common characteristics
of the peoples in India, China and Nippon. Not only
geographically and historically, but also philosophically,
Japan has ever been an appendix to Indo-Chinese Culture.

It is impossible to divide Hindu or Chinese religious
consciousness into clean-cut, well-defined compartments, be-
cause the mentality is one organised whole. It is similarly
impossible to label the different aspects of Japanese mentality
according to certain stereotyped notions of Theological
Doctors.

The most accurate statement about Japanese religious
consciousness is the following short sentence of President
Harada of Doshisha University (Kyoto) in his "Lamson
Lectures ' ' in America : ' ' The Faith of Japan, to my mind,
cannot be classified with satisfaction under any one religious
system."

TOLERATION AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE 263

The relations obtaining between Sbaivas and Buddhists
and Vaishnavas and Jainas in India, or between Con-
fucianists, Taoists and Buddhists in China are those that
every observer notices between the various sects of the
Japanese. Prof. Kum^ writes for The Fifty Years of New
fapan :

* ' In the present state of things the Japanese revere the
Kami side by side with the Buddha, and are not very
particular as to which is which."

In the same volume Prof. Takakusu has described how
a new foreign and an old native faith live side by side in
Japan, thereby promoting each other's growth: "These six
sects (of the Nara period A.D. 710-94) having been founded
soon after the introduction of Buddhism, were simply trans-
planted forms of the religion as it then existed in China,
and were not well adapted to the condition of the Japanese
nation. * * *

* * * It is true both sects (of the Kyoto period)
were brought from China, but their doctrines were greatly
modified to suit the Japanese, and, in order to adapt
Buddhism to the new country, Saicho* and Kukai (Kobo
Daishi) freely admitted all the existing gods of Japan as
incarnate forms of one or other of the Buddhas and treated
them as such.

Almost all the principal Shinto shrines had some
Buddhist priests attached to them, to whom the performance
of half of the religious rites was entrusted."

Japanese religious consciousness would thus appear to
be made of the same stuff as the Hindu and the Chinese.

* Both went to China in A.D. 804, Saicho came back in 805, Kobo Daishi
in 806.

264 CHINESE RELIGION

In spite of differences in language and probably in race, the
unity of mind is quite obvious. Freedom of conscience is
the common watchword evolved in the religious history of
the three peoples.

Writing about Michizane Sugawara, the most distin-
guished Japanese Confucianist of the Kyoto period (A.D.
704-1182), Prof. Inouye remarks in The, Fifty Years of
New Japan :

"A follower of Confucius, on the one hand, he was a
worshipper of Buddhism on the other, and, as a result, the
moral principles of loyalty and filial piety, and the religious
doctrines of renunciation and Nirvana^ occupied their places
in his mind without the least conflict or unity — thus
evidencing that in those days even a man of his scholarship,
not to speak of other men of lesser learning, did not venture
to found views of life and of the world exclusively upon the
basis of Confucianism."

Dealing with the Japanese Confucianism of the next,
i.e., Kamakura period, the same scholar refers to the in-
fluence of the Sung school of Chinese learning at Kyoto
and other centres in Japan. The Sung Confucianism differs
from the original Confucianism, as has been indicated in the
preceding chapter. ' ' During the Sui and Tang dynasties,
Buddhism predominated throughout the Chinese Bmpire,
and eventually almost stifled Confucianism. * * * Among
a great many Confucianists of the Sung dynasty, Chutsze
(A.D. 1130-1200), above all, grasped the spirit of Bud-
dhism, and using it as framework, clothed it with the flesh
and blood of Confucianism. ' '

The Sung school of learning introduced into Japan
was thus ' ' a new form of the exposition of Confucianism
with some admixture of Buddhist elements."

TOLERATION AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE 265

Even Shotoku, the first great man of Japan, was a
profound eclecticist. He was at once Chinese and Hindu —
Confucian and Buddhist. A spirit of synthetic assimilation
marks the Japanese race in the very first Act of its history.

It would thus appear that the ' ' Doctrine of Infallibil-
ity " has seldom been the curse of the Far Eastern nations.
Theirs has been the Doctrine of I^ove. They have kept
their head and heart always open to new impressions
and new emotions. The spiritual history of the San-goku
is not therefore the record of dogmas or formulas, or
creeds or so-called ' articles of faith. ' It is an account of
evolution from life-experience to life-experience. It presents
a series of landmarks, each of which is a synthesis be-
tween Culture and Faith. These syntheses have been
bom organically out of the compromise between the brute-
in-man and the god-in-man in the different stages of
culture-history. Asiatic mentality, therefore, has a place
for thousand and one heterogeneous elements in its scheme
of attitudes to nature, man, and God. It is not at all
perturbed by the apparent inconsistencies which are inevit-
able to human beings, but reconciles and harmonises them
all in the grand crucible of Life.

The following is the confession of a modern Japanese
KamiVroi^ssox in the Fifty Years:

"In what religion, then, do I believe? I cannot
answer that question directly. I turn to the Shinto priest
in case of public festivals, while the Buddhist priest is my
ministrant for funeral services. I regulate my conduct
according to Confucian maxims and Christian morals. I
care little for external forms, and doubt whether there are
any essential differences, in the Kanu^s eyes, between any
of the religions of the civilised world."

266 CHINESE REI/IGION

This is tlie spirit of Asia. Johnston in his Buddhist
China gives the following quaint little story of a certain
sixth century Chinese scholar named Fu Hsi : "This
learned man was in the habit of going about dressed in
a whimsical garb which included a Taoist cap, a Buddhist
scarf, and Confucian shoes. His strange attire aroused
the curiosity of the Chinese emperor of those days, who
asked him if he were a Buddhist. Fu Hsi replied by
pointing to his Taoist cap. 'Then are 'you a Taoist?'
said the Emperor. Fu Hsi again made no verbal an-
swer, but pointed to his Confucian shoes. ' Then are you
Confucian ? ' said the emperor. But the sage merely point-
ed to his Buddhist scarf."

And as for the polytheistic Hindu, he knows that
Krishna the Vaishnava male-deity is none other than Kali
the terrible war-goddess of the Shaktas, and that Brahtaia,
Vishnu and Shiva are one and the same. The attitude of
reconciliation could no farther go.

Section 2.

Shinto, the so-called Swadeshi Religion.

Like Minerva born cap-a-pie from the brain of Zeus,
Japan was born in panoply out of Indo-Chinese life. We
do not see the dawn or rising sun of civilisation in this
* Land of the Rising Sun.' Our almost very first acquaint-
ance with the Yamato race is in what may be called a mid-
day condition. The very first protagonist in the drama of
Japanese history is the noble personality of Prince Shotoku
Taishi. This regent (A.D. 593-621) for Empress Suiko
does not seem to be the representative of a young
civilisation or an infant race. He embodies in his life and
conception the maturest products of several millenniums

SHINTO THE SO-CALI,ED SWADEShJ RELIGION 267

of culture-history. On the one hand, in his celebrated
Constitution he summarises for the land of the Khmi
whatever has come down in the land of Confucius from the
earliest times down to the sixth century A.D.. On the
other, he propagates among his countrymen the philosophy
of the land of Sakyasimha from Rigveda to Raghu-vamsa.
The infancy of Japan is thus to be studied not in Dai Nippon
itself, but, far away from Asuka and Nara; on the banks of
the Hoangho and the Yangtse and the Indus and the Ganges-
All the preparatory work had been done for this insular
people in the "green rooms" of the Continent as that for
the Americans in Kurope. The whole history of Asia
down to the sixth century A.D. may be taken as the
preface or fore-word to the study of Japanese civilisation.

In Japan, however, there has been a tendency among
extreme nationalists to boycott the continental faiths, Con-
fucianism and Buddhism, and adumbrate instead a pure
Yamato religion. Shinto is this swadeshi (to use an
Indian term) or " country-made" religion of the Japanese.
With regard to this faith two important theories have been
started :

(1) That Shintoism is nothing but ancestor- worship.

(2) That Shintoism is the original faith of the
Yamato race — not derived from, or connected with, the
religions of other peoples.

Both these theories are unhistorical, and neither
can stand the criticism of the Comparative Method.

For any account of the archaic or prehistoric life in
primitive Japan we must have recourse to the earliest
documents of Japanese literature. Indigenous tradition has
known the following three works to be the oldest :

268 CHINESE RELIGION

1. Kojiki or "Records of Ancient matters" down to
A.D. 500. This work was completed in A.D. 712.

2. Nihongi or "Chronicles of Japan from the earliest
times down to A.D. 697." The alleged date for its comple-
tion is A.D. 720.

3. Yengishiki or "Institutes of the period Yengi''
(A.D. 901-23). In this work we get the Norito, etc.,
prayers and rituals of Shinto cult. These were written
down for the first time about this time but must have
existed in previous ages.

A mere glance at the dates would lead to the presump-
tion that the originality claimed for the matter chronicled
for the first time about that period is out of the question.
Korean Buddhism had invaded Japan at least two centuries
before the completion of Kojiki; since then the great
Shotoku Taishi had introduced continental culture with
remarkable avidity among his compatriots. Besides, it was
now the heyday of the Nara period — an epoch of constant
intercourse between Japan and the China of the mighty
Tangs.

As for the unrecorded Chinese influence on primitive
Japan, Kakasu Okakura writes in The Ideals of the East:

We received Hang art from China, and were even
perhaps acquainted with Chinese literature, long before
Wani the Hakushi, the Korean scholar, came to expound
Confucian texts. That there was a prior stream of influence
is attested by the numerous inscriptions in Chinese. * * =*=
Thus in Japan, as in China, Confucianism provided the
soil on which the seed of Buddhism afterwards fell. ' '

Internal evidences also betray foreign influences on the
earliest Japanese literature. Chamberlain remarks in the
preface to his translation of the A"(9/zfe'.'

SHINTO THE SO-CALLED SWADESHI RELIGION 269

' " It is of course not pretended that even those 'Records'
are untouched by Chinese influence ; that influence is patent
in the very characters with which the text is written.

* * * In the traditions preserved and in the customs
alluded to, we detect the early Japanese in the act of borrow-
ing from China and perhaps even from India. ' '

About the Nihongi Chamberlain says :

"Not only is the style completely Chinese, * * *
but the subject matter is touched up, re-arranged and
polished, to make the work resemble a Chinese history.

* * Chinese philosophical speculations and moral precepts
are intermingled with the cruder traditions that had descend-
ed from Japanese antiquity. ' '

Aston speaks about the Nihongi :

' ' Chinese ideas and traits of Chinese manners and
customs are frequently brought in where they have no busi-
ness. In the very first paragraph we have an essay spiced
with Chinese philosophical terms which read strangely in-
congruous as a preface to the native cosmogonic myth.

* * * "We hear continually of the Temples of the Earth
and of Grain, a purely Chinese metaphor for the State.

* * * In one case the author has gone so far as to
attribute to the Bmperor Yiiriaku a dying speech of several
pages, which is taken with hardly any alteration from a
history of the Chinese Sui dynasty, where it is assigned to
an Emperor who died 125 years later. "

Under these circumstances it is difficult to assert cate-
gorically how much of the original literature of Japan is
pure swadesht and how much foreign. Consequently it is
not safe to regard the religious beliefs and practices embod-'
ied in it, viz., the. J^ami-myths or ^Shinto, as exclusively^

270 CHINESE REWGION

Yamato. Continental influence on J^dmz'-cnlt is probably
very considerable.

The otber theory of the Shinto Revivalists is that
their faith recognises only one cult, viz. , that of ancestors.
It is alleged that ancestor- worship is the sole feature of
Shintoism, and that it is the exclusive characteristic of the
Yamato race. But even a superficial acquaintance with the
three important documents mentioned above, the Vedas of
Shintoism, is sufficient to convince any one that ancestor-
worship occupies really a very insignificant part in the whole
UTamz-liteTature.

The word Kami itself is very comprehensive and in-
cludes much more than what mere ancestor-cult would
imply. We get the following in Motoori's ICojikzden, Yol. I. :

' ' The term Kami is applied in the first place to the
various deities of Heaven and Karth who are mentioned in
the ancient records, as well as to their spirits which reside
in the shrines where they are worshipped. Moreover, not
only human beings, but birds and beasts, plants and trees,
seas and mountains, and all other things whatsoever which
deserve to be dreaded and revered for the extraordinary and
pre-eminent powers which they possess are called Kami.
They need not be eminent for surpassing nobleness, good-
ness or serviceableness alone. Malignant and uncanny
beings are also called Kami, if only they are objects of
general dread."

The following is the opinion of Aston in his Shinto^ the
Way of the Gods :

' ' The importance of the deification of human beings in
Shinto has been grossly exaggerated both by European
scholars and by modem Japanese writers.

THE CUI,T OF WORLD-FORCES IN JAPAN 271

* * * *' It has comparatively little worship of hu-
man beings. In the Kojiki^ Nihongi^ and Yengishiki^^
meet with hardly anything of this element. ' '

It is not correct, therefore, to regard Shinto and
ancestor- worship as convertible terms. It may be remember-
ed that Confucius' teachings also have been wrongly classed
as purely positivistic or agnostic.

Even if ancestor- worship be a principal characteristic of
the Kami-c\A\.^ it is equally so of the pre-Confucian and
the Vedic, as we have noticed in Chapter II..

Section 3.
The Cui,t of World-Forces in the Land of Kami.

According to Aston, Shinto is ' ' based much more on
the conception — fragmentary, shallow and imperfect as it is
— of the universe as sentient * * * it springs primarily
from gratitude to, and, though in a less degree, fear of, the
great natural powers on which our existence depends."

Further, "the humanisation of nature-deities is reflect-
ed in the vocabulary of Shinto. * * * The rhetorical
impulse to realise in its various phases the human character
of the nature-deities of Shinto has produced a number of
subsidiary "personages who are attached to them as wives,
children, ministers, or attendants. Some of these are also
nature-deities. ' '

Harada gives the following account in his Faith oj
Japan :

" Shinto has neither founder, nor dogma, neither a creed
nor system. Its name, ' the way of the gods,' was applied
to a group of certain undefined beliefs, in order to dis-
itnguish it from other religions. * * *

272 CHINESE RELIGION

Shinto was at first a nature- worship to which was
added later the worship of deified men. * * *

Shinto as a popular religion is divided into thirteen
different sects some of which are further subdivided.

* * * Practically all of them are polytheistic in belief ;
but the principal deities vary according to the different sects.
Almost all of them worship the three deities of creation.

* * * In addition to these deities, all Shintoists reverence
all and every one of both major and minor deities in the
shrines and temples — eight hundred myriads or numberless
in the whole empire. * * * j^ many sects superstitions
and obscene practices mingle with naive and innocent beliefs.

There are undeniable traces of nature-worship in
Japanese mythology. We find a sun-goddess, a moon-god, a
mountain -god, a sea-god, an earth-god, a wind-god, etc.,
associated with the various phenomena of nature. It is safe
to say that Naturism was the primitive faith of the Japanese.

In A. D. 901 * * * the number of deities wor-
shipped was 3,132. * * * The deities worshipped by the
Japanese might be roughly grouped as (1) stellar bodies,
(2) the elements of earth, air, fire and water; (3) natural
phenomena ; (4) prominent natural objects, as mountains,
rocks, trees and caverns; (5) men ; (6) animals ; and (7)
manufactured objects : in short, anything conspicuous or
exalted. Not infrequently the people worship Kami of
which they know absolutely nothing as to nature, origin or
being. ' What god we know not, yet a god there dwells.'

* * * Japan has always been polytheistic. ' '

The above descriptions would show that A'owzz-cult or
Shinto repeats almost all • the characteristics we have

THE CULT OP WORLD-FORCES IN JAPAN 27S

described as common to Vedic India and pre- Confucian
China and also to Folk-India and Folk-China of all
ages. Probably the idea of Ekam or Sh&ngii, i.e.^ the One
Supreme Being, was not developed by the primitive Japanese
or was not transplanted on Japanese soil from the continent.
It is also mentioned by Aston that the personifications in
ancient Japan were rather weak — not to be compared with
those characteristic of Indo- Aryan race-genius. But, other-
wise, Japanese religious consciousness would appear to be
similar to the Indo-Chinese.

Ancestor-cult is only one of the many items of the
pluralistic god-lore common to the three peoples.

Not only in the pluralistic Cult of the Nature-Energies
do we notice the existence of Hindu and Chinese charac-
teristics among the ancient Japanese. The ordinary details
of socio-religious life also point to the same unity. Says
Aston :

" Dreams evidently were credited with great importance,
the future being supposed to be foretold in them, and the
will of the gods made known. * * *

Some of the gods dwelt here on earth, or descended
hither from the Heavens and had children by human
women. * * *

The gods occasionally transformed themselves into
animals and at other times simple tangible objects were
called gods — or at least they were called Kami. * * *

Conciliatory offerings made to the gods were of a mis-
cellaneous nature. * * *

The people offered the things by which they themselves
set most store. * * *

274 chinejse; rei^igion

Conversations with the gods are detailed. * * * ^
number of very ancient prayers * * * consist mostly
of declarations of praise and statements of offerings made,
either in return for favours received or conditionally on
favours being granted. * * *

Priests are spoken of in a few passages. * * * The
profession soon became hereditary, according to the general
tendency in Japan towards the hereditability of ofiS.ces and
occupations. * * *

We hear also of charms, * * * herb- quelling
sabre, * * * tide-flowing jewel. * * * Divination
by means of the shoulder-blade of a stag was a favourite
means of ascertaining the will of the gods. ' '

The folk-religion and so-called superstitions of the
Taoists, Confucianists, Vedists and Shintoists are thus the
same. Students of Cultural Anthropology need take note
of this.

Further particulars by which the Hindu becomes one
with the Shintoist are being given from Aston' s work :

' ' Some artificial inanimate objects of worship are
worshipped for their own sakes as helpers of humanity.
The fire-place is honoured as a deity. Potters at the present
day pay respects to their bellows, which are allowed one
day of rest annually and have offerings made them. The
superstitious Japanese house-wife still, on the 12th day of
the 2nd month, gives her needles a holiday, laying them
down on their side and making them little offerings of cakes,
etc. * * * At the time of the spring equinox there is
a festival in India called Sri-panchamt, when it is incumbent
on every religious minded person to worship the implements
or insignia of the vocation by which he lives. ' '

THE CULT OP WORLD-FORCES IN JAPAN 275

The most interesting point is the very name "Shinto,"
which means the to or "way" of shin^ i.e., gods. The
ancient faith of Japan is thus designated by the same term
a,s is used to describe the ancient religion of the Celestials.
The To of the Yamato is the Tao of the Chinese (Confucianist
as well as Taoist) ; and both are equivalents of the Rila
of the Hindu. All the three terms mean the same thing —
the Way, the Path, the Order, the Permanent Truth, the
Cosmic System. The religions of the three peoples are
thus fundamentally the same and may be described by one
term, e.g., Sanatamsm or Taoism or Shintoism.

The following lines from Kum^'s paper in The Fifty
Years of New Japan may be adduced in evidence of the
essential unity of Hindu, Chinese and Yamato faiths here
indicated :

' ' Under a mystical symbol in the Yi-king, the Chinese
^ Book of Changes, ' Confucius remarks that Shinto {i.e. the
Divine Way of Heaven) arranges the four seasons: 'The
sages of yore, therefore, ' says he, ' taught people according
to the divine way {Shin-to) , and there was peace on earth.
* * * Shinto in this primitive sense is, therefore, not
peculiar to Japan. ' ' Buddhism is a Shinto, ' says Chisung,
a Chinese monk, 'a Shinto with a deeper conviction. ' ' '

Shinto as interpreted in these lines means the very
thing that the Vedic Rita does, as we have seen in chapter
II. . Asiatic religious consciousness has thus evolved every-
where the same idea of ' ' Cosmic Order " or " Permanent
Way ' ' as the keystone of man' s spiritual life. Pre-Buddhist
Japan, if it is at all historically possible to use such an
expression, pre-Buddhist China and pre-Buddhist India are,
therefore, three expressions of a common mentality. Even
without Buddhism Asia would still be one.

276 chinese religion

Section 4.
The Three-fold Basis of Asiatic Unity.

Asiatic Mind is, therefore, one. This unity rests on a
common psychology supplying a fundamental basis. That
foundation of Asiatic consciousness may be said to consist
in three conceptions:

First is the conception of the TaOy the Zo, the Micht,
the Rita. The Chinese, the Japanese and the Hindus
consciously as well as unconsciously govern their life-
relations according to a postulate. They have a living faith
that there is an Eternal Order, a sanatana way, regulating
the course of the diverse members of the Universe (in-
cluding Nature and Man) . The Cult of World-Forces is
the common bed-rock of Asiatic spiritual institutions mani-
festing itself in and through a rich diversity.

Second is the conception of Pluralism. The Chinese^
the Japanese and the Hindus are essentially pluralists in
religious beliefs. Their pluralism is a corollary to their
cult of the World-Forces or Nature-Powers. These eight
hundred millions of human beings are thus fundamentally
polytheists. It is impossible for Nature-worshippers to be
sincere monotheists. They would never, in fact, care to
define their exact position. Outsiders can vaguely guess
that they are polytheistic from one point of view and
monotheistic from another, or to use a bit subtler
phraseology, /z^/wistheistic from the one and /awtheistic from
the other.

One of the great superstitions of the modern age has
been the glorification of a, so-called monotheism.

Monotheism has been awarded by scholars the place of
honour in the schedule of religious systems. It is supposed

THE THREE-FOLD BASIS OF ASIATIC UNITY 277

to be the ideally best system. Students of comparative
mytiiology and comparative religion Have, therefore, man-
aged to detect in their favourite Indo-Aryan lore grand
conceptions of monotheistic faith. Asiatic scholars also in
their anxiety to be abreast of the modern spirit have fallen
an easy prey to this superstition.

Taking the cue from European students, Asiatic
students have been tempted to catalogue the faiths of
the Confucianists, Taoists, Vedists, Buddhists, Shaivas,
Vaishnavas, Shintoists and others as monotheistic. Nothing
can be farther from the truth. A preconceived theory or
the imagination of closet-philosophers cannot give the lie to
facts.

Not only in Asia, but all over the world, man has ever
been a polytheist. Monotheism is a psychological absurdity.
Both the physical organism and the nervous system of man
predispose him to be a polytheist. Pluralism is the debt
that every human being must pay to the flesh, the sense-
organs ; — it is almost a physiological necessity. Constituted
as man is, he cannot afford to be a monotheist except on
occasions of abstract intellectual discussion.

It is a fact that man is a pluralist in every worldly field.
He is a pluralist in all his social relations — economic,
political and even domestic. In governmental matters no
man nowadays believes in one-man rule. The economist
has declared : ' ' There is a limit to each want, but there
is no limit to the variety of wants." And this doctrine of
variety is corroborated by the evidences of Biology and
medical science. So far so that Ibsenism is now being
preached from house-tops by more than one Bernard Shaw
in Europe and more or less actually practised everywhere.

278 CHINESE REWGION

And people in tlie land of Democratic Vistas have been
oscillating between the Scylla of "Free Love" and the
Charybdis of Polygamy,

The poet has said — " A child is a plaything for an
hour. " As a matter of fact, not only the child, but all the
greatest things loved by man and woman are playthings
only "for an hour." It would be the torment of a hell to
live under the perpetual domination of any one idea, any one
person, any one institution.

If in all affairs that affect the most vital interests of life
man has been a pluralist, how is it that in the other-worldly
affairs alone he is an advocate of monism, and the more
concrete monotheism? The only explanation seems to be
that he is sincere in his worldly beliefs, but a hypocrite in
other-worldly matters ; or probably he is really interested in
those things but quite indifferent with regard to these.

It may be asked — ' ' Is there no unity underlying the
psycho-physical system of human beings?" The reply is
that this unity of individual personality is an abstraction, to
which the Tao, the Rita^ the Michi, the Way, the One, the
Eternal, the Ekam^ Shdn^ti^ Brahma, Oversoul, God and
other monistic abstractions of metaphysics may be said to
correspond. But, for all practical purposes, man must be
treated not in the singular number but in the plural — as a
composite bundle of sensations, perceptions, emotions, voli-
tions, pleasures, pains, prejudices, superstitions, attitudes,
relations, etc.. And if there, is to be a system of religious
ideas, beliefs or faiths, it must have to be essentially
composite, pluralistic, polytheistic-^— with a monistic or
.monotheistic under-current. , This is what the Confucianists,
Taoists, Vedists, Upanishadists, Buddhists, Shaivas, Shinto-
■ists and others have conceived in Asia.

THE THREE-FOLD BASIS OF ASIATIC UNITY 279

The third basis of Asiatic Mentality is the spirit of
Toleration or the conception of "peace and good- will to all
mankind." Toleration follows as a matter of course from
the conception of Pluralism. This is, as it were, a ' second
nature' to the polytheistic Hindus, Chinese and Japanese.
It has been well-said that ' ' monotheistic Gods are jealous
gods." Polytheistic peoples, on the contrary, are habituated
to accord a warm reception to every new deity into their
pantheon. Jealousy, bigotry and fanaticism are not the
stu6f out of which the polytheistic head and heart are made.
They are filled with the idea of ' 'good in everything' ' and the
milk of human kindness. What Socialism is in the economic
sphere, what Republicanism is in the political world, that is
Polytheism or the Cult of the Many in niatters spiritual or
religious. Each has for its motto the individualistic
doctrine of laisser faire^ non-intervention, or creation of
opportunities for all.

The synthesis between the one and the many, the
spirit and the matter, the transcendental and the positive,
the infinite and the finite, the universal and the particular,
on the one hand ; and the toleration and encouragement of
diversities, angularities, discrepancies and inconsistencies,
on the other, — these are the outcome of this triple founda-
tion of Asiatic consciousness. We have been led up to
this by the inductive study of the facts and phenomena of the
socio-religious world in India, China, and Japan.

It is this psychological groundwork that makes Asiatic
Unity a philosophical necessity in spite of ethnological and
linguistic diversities. The unity is thus more funda-
mental than has been hitherto recognised by historians.
The intercourse between the members of the San-goku
established by Buddhistic missionising or by commercial

280 CHINESE E.EI/IGION

activity and diplomatic relations lias only supplied ad-
ditional connecting links. But the chief point to be
noticed is that, Buddhism or no Buddhism, international
relations or no international relations, the three nations
of Asia have had a common mentality. That commonness
is deeper than what can be supplied by actual coming
and going — in fact, absolute^ as contrasted with the relative^
which is born of political or commercial contact. The
relative unity maj' disappear through changes in the
diplomatic grouping of Powers, as it has done so often in
history, but the absolute psychological unity can perish
never.

CHAPTER XI.

Sino-Japanese Buddhism and Neo-Hinduism

Section 1.
The Alleged Extinction of Buddhism in India.

The name Buddha either as that of the Great Teacher
of the sixth century B.C. or as that of a God has not been
much in vogue among the followers' of what is called Neo-
Hinduism, i.e., those who accept as their Bibles the Pur anas
and Tantras. It has, therefore, been held amoUg Orientalists
that Buddhism whether as Hinayanism or as Mahayanism is
extinct in India, the land of its birth.

This is a very superficial and erroneous view of the
actual state of things. For, taking the evolutional view of
Sociology, it would appear that Buddha has been immortal
in Indian consciousness both as a teacher and as a divinity.
In the first place, Hinayanism, i.e. Nirvanism or Cessation-of-
Miseryism, or the Doctrine of Renunciation or Self-sacrifice,
or Philanthropy and Social Service, or Asceticism and Monas-
ticism, is still practised by the Hindus who do not call them-
selves Buddhists as much as by the professed Hinayanists
of Ceylon, Burma, and Siam. Secondly, Mahayanism,
which alone I have called Buddhism, as the worship of the
deities named Buddha, Avalokiteswara, etc, is as great a
living religion of the modern Hindus who have no Buddha
in their pantheon as of the Buddhists of Tibet, Mongolia,,
China and Japan.

Let as apply what is known as the philosophical method
to the elucidation of this problem. If the deities of the
neo-Hindu pantheon, male and female, were catalogued and

282 " CHINESE REWGION

Studied alongside of the "Gods of Northern Buddhism,"
i.e.^ the so-called Buddhistic deities of trans-Himalayan
Asia, it would appear

1. that in many cases, the same deity exists in all
the countries under different names.

2. that the purposes of invocation and the modes of
worship are more or less identical.

3. that the folk-ideas associated with the deities and
the efi&cacy of worshipping them do not practically differ
among these peoples.

4. that deities which seem to be special to India,
China or Japan, having no analogues in the sister countries^
are new creations adapted to local conditions, but easily
assimilated to the entire system in each.

5. that if the Japanese and Chinese mythologies have
any claims to be called Buddhistic, so do the Pauranic
and Tantric of the Indians, though they practically ignore
the name of Buddha.

Besides, a historico-comparative study of the mythologies
of the races of the San-goku would bring out three im-
portant factors which have contributed to the building up of
each:

1. The Cult of World-Forces common to the Vedists
(i?zV<2:ists), pre-Confucian Chinese (Taoists) and the worship-
pers of Kami (Shintoists).

2. The Religion of Love and Romanticism which grew
out of the first. This was born almost simultaneously in India
and China as the worship of saints, avataras, heroes, Nature-
Powers, etc., with the help of images; and transferred to
the Land of the Kavzi in the very first stage of its history,
where it found a most congenial soil, and where the race-
consciousness might have developed it independently.

ti-tsAng 283

3. The Religion of the Folk which was the parent of
the first two has ever been active in creating, adapting, and-
re-interpreting local and racial myths of the three countries
down to the present day.

The Gods and Goddesses of the Puranas and Tantras
are the joint products of all these factors; so, too, are the
Gods and Goddesses of Buddhist China and Buddhist Japan.
The present-day deities of the Hindus owe their parentage to
the Mahayanic cult of mediaeval Hinduism and are historical-
ly descended from the Gods of * Northern Buddhism ' in the
same way as the pantheons of modern Japan and China
continue the tradition of the 'Hinduism of the Buddha-cult. '

Thus, both philosophically and historically, Neo-
Hinduism and Sino-Japanese Buddhism are essentially the
same. The Vaishnavas, Shaivas and Shaktas of India
should know the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists as co-
religionists. Similarly the Sino-Japanese Buddhists should
recognise the neo- Hindus of India as Buddhists.

The alleged ' ' strangling ' ' of Buddhism by Hindus is
a fiction and cannot stand the criticism of the philosophico-
historical method. The disappearance of Buddha and his
host from present-day Indian consciousness belongs to the
same category as that of Indra, Varuna, Soma, Pushan and
other Vedic deities. And if in spite of this the Hindus have
a right to be called followers of the Vedas, they have equal
claims to be regarded as Buddhists (both Hinayana and
Mah^yana) .

Section 2.
The Bodhisattva-cult in China, Japan and India

(a) Ti-Tsang

The learned historical articles on "The Bodhisattva
Ti-tsang (Jizo) in China and Japan" by M. W. De Visser

284 CHINESE REI/IOION

in the Ostasiatische- Zeitschrift (July, 3913 to . December,
■1914) supply enormous facts from wliicli it would be obvious
to stiidents of Indology tbat tlie so-called Buddhist gods of
China and Japan and the gods of neo-Hinduism in India
are substantially the same. There are slight differences in
name and function, in features of images and modes of
worship. But people used to the mythology of the Puranas
would notice a family -likeness and even analogues or
identities in the Sino- Japanese Buddhistic mythology. In
some cases it is not possible to trace the historical connexion
— but philosophically speaking, even there the identity is
obvious and indicates a common mythological development
among the three peoples on more or less independent lines.

In China Ti-tsing is described ' ' as the compassionate
priest, whose khakkhara shakes and opens the doors of
hell, and whose precious pearl illumines the Region of
Darkness."

A Korean prince of the eighth century was declared to
be a manifestation of Ti-tsang.

Visser quotes the statements of a modern Japanese
author on the history of the Ti-tsang cult in China : ' 'From
the time of the Tsin, Sung, Liang, Chin, T'sin and Chao
dynasties (A.D. 265-589) the cases of those who were saved
by invocating and reciting the names of Kwanyin, Ti-tsang,
Maitreya and Amitabha were so many that they are beyond
description."

The following is a picture of Ti-tsang in the Chinese
work Yuh-lih (Calendar of Jade): "After some pictures
representing Shangti throning as judge of the dead, sur-
rounded by his ofl&cials,. and virtuous souls rewarded with
heavenly joy, while the wicked are tortured by the demons

• ■ ,jizo 285

of hell, we see Ti-tsang in the robe of a priest, with thq
urna on his forehead, wearing a five-pointed crown and
with a round halo behind his head. He rides on a tiger, and
is escorted by his attendants, two young priests, of whom
one carries his master's Khakkhara, whereas the other
holds a long streamer adorned with a lotus flower. We
read on the streamer : ' The Tantra-ruler of the Darkness,
King Ti-tsang the Bodhisattva. ' A boy leads the tiger with
a cord, "

(3) Jizo.

The Japanese have ever been as good Puranists and
Tantrists as the neo-Hindus; or, what is the same thing, the
neo-Hindus have been as good Buddhists as the Japanese.

In Japan Jizo is worshipped as a deity of the roads.
Jizo in one form is the " Conqueror of the armies" and an
avatara of an old Yamato Thunder-god. This Jizo represent-
ed on horseback is the tutelary god of warriors who used to
erect his images on the battlefields and at the entrance to
their castles.

Jizo in another form is the giver of easy birth. There
is " the custom of placing Jizo images before the house of a
newly married couple in the bridal night."

Jizo is believed to save the souls from hell and lead
them to paradise. He also healed the sick and many of his
images were known for curing special diseases. He is also
the special protector of the children.

It is superfluous to add that the Pauranic and Tantric
Hindus with their three hundred and thirty million deities
would recognise in these Japanese Jizos some of the objects
of their love and devotion. The cult of these gods is not a

286 CHINESE RELIGION

matter for mere arcliEeological study in the great empire of the
Far East. Any tourist would endorse the following remarks,
of Visser : ' ' Thus we see that New Japan goes on worship-
ping this mighty Bodhisattva and imploring his assistance
and protection in all the phases of human life. * * *
The present day with all its western civilisation, sees our
gentle, merciful Bodhisattva gloriously maintaining his
mighty position and living in the people's heart like in the
days of yore."

If this is Buddhism, it is sheer pedantry to say that
Buddhism has been driven out of India ' ' to seek Lavinian
shores."

This most important Bodhisattva of China and Japan is
historically none other than Kshiti-garbha, one of the Eight
Great Bodhisattvas of Mahayanic pantheon, for the Chinese
name Ti-tsang is the exact equivalent of the Sanskrit term.
It is interesting to note that ' ' his name is apparently seldom
mentioned in Indian literature. Therefore we have to
consult the Chinese Tripitaka for getting information about
his nature." Further, "in the well-known Chinese work
on India, entitled Records on Western regions made under the
Great Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-907), and composed in A.D.
646 by the famous Buddhist pilgrim* Hiuen-Thsang (A.D.
602-664) we do not read one word about Kshiti-garbha. Also,
The Traditions on the Inner Law^ by one who returned from
the Southern Ocean to China^ written by another famous
pilgrim I-tsing (A.D. 634-713) who in A.D. 671 started
from China and returned in A.D. 695 does not mention
Kshiti-garbha. " . ,

It is probable, therefore, that Kshiti-ga;rbha was not
worshipped as such in India, and that the Ti-tsahg-cult

AVAI^OKITESWARA 287

as well as Jizo-cult should be regarded as independent
extra- Indian developments. The only items borrowed by the
Chinese and Japanese seem to be the name, and, of course,
certain theological notions recorded in the Sutras] but the
elaboration is mainly original. And yet in the complex
pantheon of the neo-Hindus there are deities which are the
exact duplicates of Ti-tsang and Jizo, t.e. , of the primal Kshi-^
ti-garbha.

These and thousand other facts would lead to the
conclusion that Mahayanic Buddhism lives in and through
the so many cults of modern Hinduism, and that this
Hinduism is essentially the same as Chinese and Japanese
Buddhism. The members of the Sino-Japanese pantheon are
all to be found under new names in the Vaishnava, Shaiva,
Shakta and other pantheons of modern India.

{c) AVALOKITESWARA.

In fact, the Bodhisattva came into the Mahayanic
pantheon with all the marks of recognised Neo-Hindu
deities. Thus it is not difficult to identify Avalokiteswara
with a Vishnu or a Brahma.

, In the fournal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great
Britain and Irelandior-th.& year 1894, Waddell contributed
a paper on the genesis and worship of the Great Bodhisattva
Avalokita, the keystone of Mahdyana Buddhism — and his
Shakti or 'Energy ^ i.e.^ consort, Tara, the saviouress. His
literary sources of information were Tibetan, and illustra-
tions were drawn from the lithic remains in Magadha (Bihar,
India). This was one of the first attempts to, study the
dark period of Indian Buddhism subsequent to Hiuen
Thsang's visit (A.D. 645).

288 CHINESE REWGION

The following is taken from that paper :
" Avalokita is a purely metaphysical creation of the
Indian Buddhists who in attempting to remedy the agnosti-
cism of Buddha's idealism, endeavoured to account theistical-
ly for the causes lying beyond the finite, and so evolved the
polytheistic Mahayana form of Buddhism. * * * ^T^e
metaphysical Bodhisattva Avalokita ultimately became so
expanded as to absorb most of the attributes of each of the
separate Buddhist deities. His different modes were
concretely represented by images of different forms and
symbols ; his more active qualities were relegated to female
counterparts {Saktis)^ chief of whom was Tara."

The cult of Avalokita brought with it organised worship,
litanies and pompous ritual. The style of the worship
was similar to that for his consort Tara. It is divided into
seven stages :

1. The Invocation.

2. Presentation of offerings.

3. Hymn.

4 . Repetition of the spell.

5. and 6. Prayers for benefits present and to come.
7. Benediction.

All this is thoroughly orthodox Brahmanic or neo-Hindu.

The introduction of Tara into Buddhism seems to date
from the sixth century. Hiuen Thsang refers to her image
in a few shrines; but "her worship must soon thereafter
have developed rapidly, for her inscribed images from the 8th
to the 12th centuries A.D. are numerous at old Buddhist
sites* throughout India and in Magadha — the birth-place of
Buddhism."

* Many have been unearthed in recent years by the archseologists of the
" Varendra Research Society " in Rajshahi, Bengal.

MOODS OF DIVINITIES 289

This Tsird might be a Lakshmi or a Durga or a
Saraswati as the goddess of wealth, terror or wisdom or
what not, according to the thousand and one manifestations
of Bnergy.

{d) Moods of Divinities.

An Adi Buddha is called Vajrasatta (whose essence is
thunderbolt) in Sanskrit. He is the Buddha of supreme in-
telligence. He is worshipped in China as Suan-tzu-lo-sa-
isu-i, and in Japan as Kongdsatta.

Mrs. Getty gives the following account in her Gods of
Northern Buddhism :

He has both a ' mild ' and ' ferocious ' form. The
mild form has usually two arms and is seated on a lotus
throne which is often supported by an elephant. The
ferocious form has six arms, a third eye, and a ferocious ex-
pression. Above the forehead is a skull. His colour is red.
In this form he is not supported by an elephant. ' '

Not only are the characteristics and functions of the
Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas identical with those of the
Pauranic and Tantric deities, but the canons of art also are
the same for Mahayanic as well as neo-Hindu Iconography.
Thus the ferocious and mild forms of the Buddhist deities
are repeated in the non-.Mahayanic, too. One common art-
tradition* was -utilised by the sculptors and painters to ex-
press the common spiritual consciousness.

* As the work was passing through the press the author saw in the Modern
Review (Calcutta, October 1915) A. N. Tagore's paper on "Sadanga or the six
Umbs of Painting." It is a contribution to the psychology of Hindu igsthetics.
Vide the works of Havell and CoQniA,rasw^my on Hiadu Architecture, Sculpture
and Painting.

290 CHINESE RELIGION

The following remarks about icons in Sukra-n'tti, once
quoted in a previous connexion, could be made by a
Purhmst or Tdntrist as mUch as by a so-called Buddhist :

' ' The characteristic of an image is its power of helping
forward contemplation and Yoga. The human maker of
images should, therefore, be meditative. Besides meditation
there is no other way of knowing the character of an image
— even direct observation (is of no use)." Chapter IV.
Section iv. 147-50.

As for the moods of the divinities corresponding to
which sculptors should select the forms of the images* the
following is recorded by Doctor Sukra (IV. iv. 159-166) :

' ' Images are of three kinds — sattvika, r&jasika and
tamasika.

The images of Vishnu and other gods are to be wor-
shipped in the sattvtka, rajasika or tamasika form according
to needs and circumstances.

The sattvika image is that which has yoga mudra or
the attitude of meditation, the straight back, hands giving
blessings and courage, and has the gods represented as wor-
shipping it.

The r&jasika image is that which sits on some vahana
or conveyance, is adorned with numerous ornaments, and
has hands equipped with arms and weapons as well as
offering courage and blessings to the devotees.

The tamasika image is thiat which is a killer of demons
by arms and weapons, which has a ferocious and vehement
look and is eager for warfare."

*See the paper on "Some Hindu Silpa-Sdstras in their relation to South
Indian Sculpture" by Hadaway in the Ostasiatische Zeitschrift (April- June
1914).

SHAIVA-CUM-SHAKTAISM 291

In Sukra-nitt*^ , whicli is evidentl}' neo-Hindu, there is
no mention of Buddlias, Bodhisattvas or Avalokitesvaras.
But readers of Getty's book and Waddell's paper would
notice that the Mahayanist iconography also presents the
same threefold type.

It need also be added that Indian ^thetics, whether
called Hindu or Buddhist, crossed the Himalayas to enrich
the art-consciousness of the Chinese. Thus in reviewing
Das Citralakshana edited and translated by Berthold
Laufer of the FieldMuseum, Chica go, Smith writes in The
Ostasiatische Zeitschrift (January-March 1914):

' * Laufer holds that the influence of Indian painting in
China was not confined to Buddhist subjects, but that it
extended to the composition and technique, specially, the
colouring of painting in general."

And Abanindrandth Tagore in his contribution on
' ' Sadanga or the Six Limbs of Indian Painting as given by
Bats^yana (670 B.C?— 200 A.D?)" in the same journal
(for April -June 1914) remarks on the theory of "Six
Canons of Chinese Painting' ' enunciated by the Celestial
art-critic Hsieh Ho (5th century A.D.) as being eminently
significant.

There is thus one art-inspiration governing the so-called
Buddhist and the so-called Hindu, i.e.^ all the peoples of
India, China and Japan.

Section 3.

The Buddhism of China and Japan euphemism eor

Shaiva-cum-Shaktaism.

A few feminine divinities are being described according
to Getty's Gods of Northern Buddhism.

* Sukra-nUi translated from Sanskrit into English for " The Sacred Books
of the Hindus Series" (Panini office) by B.K. Sarkar.

292 CHINESE RELIGION

Tara as a goddess was known to the Chinese in the 7th
century, A.D. " Hiuen Thsang mentions a statue of the
goddess Tari of great height and endowed with divine
penetration, and says that on the first day of each year
kings, ministers and powerful men of the neighbouring
countries brought flower offerings of exquisite perfume, and
that the religious ceremonies lasted for eleven days with
great pomp. ' '

The Japanese Tara "holds the lotus, and may be making
' charity ' and ' argument ' mudrh or have the hands folded.
Her colour is a whitish green. * * * She holds the blue
lotus or the pomegranate which is believed as in India to
drive away evil."

Ekajata or blue Tara is a ferocious form of Tara. ' ' She
has from four to twenty-four arms, and is generally standing
and stepping to the right on corpses — she has the third eye,
is laughing horribly, her teeth are prominent, and her
protruding tongue, according to the Sadhana^ is forked.
Her eyes are red and round. Her hips are covered by a
tiger-skin, and she wears a long garland of heads. If
painted, her colour is blue, and her chignon is red. She is
dwarfed and corpulent. Her ornaments are snakes."

Saraswati is worshipped by the Buddhists of China and
Japan as the goddess of music and poetry. "In Japan
the goddess Benten is looked upon as a manifestation of
Saraswati. Her full name is * * Great Divinity of the
Reasoning Faculty. * * * The white snake is believed
to be a manifestation of Saraswatt. * * The goddess is
generally represented either sitting or standing on a dragon
or huge snake — she has only "two arms, and holds a biwa or
Japanese lute." , ' ' '

SHAIVA-eUM-SHAKTAISM 293

Red Tara is "the goddess of wealth and follows in the
suite of the god of wealth Kuvera, but is not his consort or
Saktiy VasudharS, "goddess of abundance, is ^^sakii
of Kuvera, god of wealth. She is always represented with
one head, but may have from two to six arms, and wears
all the Bodhisattva ornaments. When she has but two
arms, the left hand holds a spike of grain, while the right
holds a vase, out of which pours a quantity of jewels."

If the people of Tibet, Mongolia, China, and Japan are
known as Buddhists because they worship these deities, the
modern Hindus who follow the Tantras 'and Puranas are
also good Buddhists. The Shaiva-cum-Shakta pantheon of
neo-Hinduism ca:n present duplicates of all these divinities
and is in essence but an expression of Sino-Japanese
Buddhism.

It is superfluous to add that the goddesses of Shiva's
family, in fact, his consorts, e.g. , Kali, Durga, Jagad-dhatri,
etc., are the sisters of some of the trans-Himdlayan Taras,
and that his daughter Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, also
can be identified with one of them. Besides, the Hindu
Lakshmi' s sister, Saraswati, goddess of learning, is known
by the same name among extra-Indian Buddhists.

Descriptions of some of the members of the Shaiva
pantheon, with illustrations by painters of the modern
nationalist school of Indian Art, are to , be found in The
Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists by Nivedita and
Coomaraswamy. Nivedita' s Studies from an Eastern Home
as well as Kal% the Mother may also be consulted.

The following invocation of the Buddhist Tara given
in Waddeir s paper could be made by a neo-Hindu to his
Durg^ :

294 CHINESE RELIGION

"Hail! O! verdant Tar^ !

The Saviour of all beings !

Descend, we pray Thee, from Thy heavenly mansion,
at Potala

Together with all Thy retinue of gods, titans, and
deliverers !

We humbly prostrate ourselves at Thy lotus feet.

Deliver us from all distress! O Holy Mother!"
So also the presentation of offerings to the Buddhist Shakti
is in the characteristic spirit of India :

' ' We sincerely beg Thee in all Thy divine Forms

To partake of the food now offered !

On confessing, to Thee penitently their sins

The most sinful hearts, yea ! even the committers of the

Ten vices and the five boundless sins.

Will obtain forgiveness and reach

Perfection of Soul — through Thee ! ' '

In the Buddhist hymn translated by Waddell, Tara is
praised in her twenty-one forms as: — (l) supremely courage-
ous, (2) of white moon brightness, (3) golden coloured,
(4) grand hair piled, (5) H''ung shouter, (6) best three-
world worker, (7) suppresser of strife, (8) giver of supreme
power, (9) best bestower, (10) Dispeller of grief, (11)
Cherish er of the poor, (12) brightly glorious, (13) of
universal mature deeds, (14) with the frowning brows,
(15) giver of prosperity, (16) subduer of passion, (17).
supplier of happiness, (18) excessively vast, (19) dis-
peller of distress, (20) advent of spiritual power, (21) com-
pletely perfect.

Such forms are known to the Puranists and Tdntrists
also about their own Shaktis (Goddesses of Energy). The
hymns also are identical.

SHAIVA-CUM-SHAKTAISM 295

Just as Buddhist divinities may be said to have been
receiving worship "as Shaiva deities in modern India, so
also the Shaiva divinities may be said to have been receiving
the worship of the Sino- Japanese Buddhists.

The great masses of gods and goddesses in Japanese
Buddhism regarded as the manifestations of the supreme
original divinity are thus described by Okakura :

" Fudo, the immovable, the god of Samadhi, stands for
the terrible form of Shiva. * * * jjg jjg^g ^^^ gleaming
third eye, the trident sword and the lasso of snakes. In
another form, as Kojin, * * * he wears a gar-
land of skulls, armlets of snakes, and the tiger-skin of
meditation.

His feminine counterpart appears as Aizen, of the
mighty bow, lion-crowned and awful, the God of Love
— but love in its strong form, whose fire of purity is
death and who slays the beloved that he may attain the
highest. * * *

The Indian idea of Kali is also represented by Kariteimo,
the mother-queen of Heaven. * * * Saraswati as
Benten, with her mnd (lute), which quells the waves;
Kompira or the Gandharva, the eagle-headed, sacred to
mariners ; Kichijoten or Lakshmi, who confers fortune and
love ; Taigensui, the commander-in-chief (Kartikeya) who
bestows the banner of victory ; Shoden, the elephant-headed
Ganesh, Breaker of the Path, to whom the first salutations
are paid in all village worship * * * — ^11 these suggest
the direct adoption of Hindu deities."

Trans-Himalayan Buddhism is really an euphemism for
Shaiva-cum-Shaktaism .

296 chinese rei/igion

Section 4.

Neo-Hinduism IN Trans-HimAlayan Asia.

There are other goddesses in Buddhist China and Japan
besides Saraswati and Tara whose names are identical with
those of the Pauranic and Tantric deities of India.

Among the deities worshipped by the Buddhists of
China and Japan under the same name as by the Hindus of
India may be mentioned —

(1) Ndgas and Garudas

(2) Kuvera and Lokapalas.

(3) Mahakala.

(4) Marichi.

(5) Hariti.

Thus not only is Shaivaism Buddhistic or Mahayanic
but other Indian isms also are equally so. In other words,
the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists are Hindus of the
Pauranic and T^intric sects.

The following is taken from Getty :

' ' In China Yen-lo-wang ( Yama) is not regent of the
Buddhist hells, he is a subordinate under Ti-tsang and the
fifth of the ten kings of hell, who reign over ten courts of
judgment. They are represented in Chinese temples,
standing when in the presence of Ti-tsang, and surrounded
by representations of the torments of the different hells. "
He is believed to be assisted by his sister who judges the
women, while he judges the men.

' 'In J apan Bmma-0 ( Yama) is regent and holds the
same position as Yama in India. In both China and Japan the
representations of Yama are practically alike, a middle aged
man with a fierce expression and a beard. On his head is a

NKO-HINDUISM in TRANS-'IillSlALAYAN ASIA 297

judge's cap, and lie is dressed in flowing garments with the
feet always covered. He is Seated with the legs, locked and
in his right hand is the mace of office. "

The twelve Japanese gods alleged to have been painted
by the celebrated Kobo Daishi al-e :

(1) Boten — (Brahma) attended by (2) the white bird
Ha Kuga ox s^zxi. (3) Khaten — (Agni, Fire god). (4)
Ishanna — (name of Rudra or Siva). (5) Thaishak — (Indra
— a Vedic deity). (6)P''uten. (7) Vishamon (Kuvera —
Lord of wealth) whose consort is Kichijoten (Goddess of
Fortune). (8) Bmma (Yama) — :riding on a buffalo, and
bearing the great staff of death, surmounted by two heads.
(9) Nitten (Suryya the Sun-god). (lO) Getten (the
Moon-god). ( 11 ) Suiten (the God of waters on a tortoise).
(12) Shoden (Ganesha).

Neo-Hinduism must be said to be flourishing as much in
Buddhist China and Japan as in modern India ; or modern
Hindus are Mahayanists still like the Chinese and Japanese.

The following picture of what may be regarded as
Japanese Vaishnavism is furnished by Okakura :

"A wave of religious emotion passed over Japan in the
Fujiwara epoch (A.D. 900-1200), and intoxicated with
frantic love, men and women deserted the cities and villages
in' crowds to follow Kuya or' Ipen, dancing and singing the
name of Amida as they went. Masquerades came into vogue,
representing angels descending from Heaven with lotus dais,
in order to welcome and bear upward the departing soul.
Ladies would spetid a lifetime in weaving or embroidering
the image of Divine Mercy, out of threads extracted from
the lotus stem; Such was the new movement, which * *
closely paralleled in China in the beginning of the Tang

298 CHINESE RELIGION

dynasty * * * has never died, and to this day two-
thirds of the people belong to the Jodo sect, which corres-
ponds to the Vaishnavism of India.

Both Genshin, the formulator of the creed, and Genku,
who carried it to its culmination, pleaded that human nature
was weak, and try as it might, could not accomplish entire
self-conquest and direct attainment of the Divine in this life.
It was rather by the mercy of the Amida Buddha and his
emanation Kwannon that one could alone be saved. ' '

Section 5.
Modern Hinduism.

Haraprasad Sastri was probably the first to bring to
the notice of scholars that mediaeval Buddhism exists
even now among the lower orders of the Bengalee people.
The worship of the god Dharma is according to him
nothing but the Mahayanic ciilt elaborated in the Sunya
Purana of Ramai Pandit. The doctrine of Sunya or void,
i.e. , Nothingness, was a principal theory of one of the forms
of mediaeval Buddhism, and, though generally associated with
the name of Nigarjuna, may be traced back to Aswaghosha
according to Vidhusekhara Sastri' s communication in the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ivondon, 1914). H.P.
Sastri's contributions to the. Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal (No. 1, 1895), and Proceedings oi ^e Socieiy (ior
December, 1898) , supply interesting facts about Buddhism
in modem Bengal.

Dines Chandra Sen in his History of Bengali
Literature also refers to Buddhist elements in the litera-
ture and life of Bengal from the tenth to the seventeenth
century. His remarks on the absorption of Buddhism by
Vaishnavas who have followed Chaitanya the Reformer

MODERN HINDUISM 299

(A.D. 1483-1533) are also relevant to the present topic.
And in Nagendrandth Vasu's Modern Buddhism^ one can
see tlie various forms under which Buddhism is maintaining
its existence even at the present day in some of the border
districts between Bengal and Orissa.

Another work by a Hindu scholar may also be
mentioned. Haridas Paiit's Adyer Gambkir&i written in
Bengali language, deals with a folk-festival of the Shivaites in
northern Bengal. In this he has presented a historic treat-
ment of the stages and processes in the evolution of the neo-
Hindu Shiva-cult out of the Mahaydnic and pre-Sakyan {i.e.
Vedic) elements. The modern Shiva is descended as much
from the primitive Rudra as from the Yoga-Tantric Avaloki-
teswara, and has assimilated, besides, the characteristics of
various popular deities. In fact, all the three factors men-
tioned in Section 1. have contributed to the making of Shiva
andHis host.

Conclusions of these and other Indian scholars have
been incorporated with my forthcoming* work The Folk-
Element in Hindu Culture. It is unnecessary to summarise
what has been said there ; but the titles of some of the
chapters may be mentioned here :

Chapter VI. Popular Buddhism in Hindu Bengal.

Chapter X. Buddhist and Taina Elements in Modern
Hindui'sm.

Chapter XI. National Festivals of the 7th century A.D.
Section 1. The Age of Religious Eclecticism
, , 2 . Two festivities witnessed by Hiuen
Thsang

(a) The Festival at Kanauj

(b) The Festival at Allahabad

• In the press ia England (Ijongmans Green & Co.)

300 CHINESE RELIGION

Chapter XII. Socio-religious Life of the People of
Bengal under the Pilas.
Section 1. The Pak-Chola Period of Indian

history (9th-13th century.)
Section 2. Submergence of Buddhism.
,, 3. Establishment of .Shaivaisni.
Chapter XIII. The TSntric Lore of Mediaeval Bud-
dhism.
Section 1. Mahayanic Mythology.

, , 2. The common factor in neo-Hindu-
ism'and heo-Buddhism : (a) Avalok-
iteswara, (b) Manjusri, (c) Tara.
Section 3. Drama and Tantrism.
Chapter XIV. Ramai Pandit, a folk-minstrel of Deca-
dent Buddhism.
Section 1. Tantrism of Atisha, the Buddhist

missionary in Tibet.
Section 2. Hindu ceremonials in Buddhism.
,, 3. The work of Ramdi as Preacher.
,, 4. The Creation-story in Sunya

Purana.
,, 5. Final Hinduising of Mediaeval
' Buddhism.
If the religious beliefs and practices of all classes of the
so-called Hindus were scrutinised; it" would be found that,
historically speaking, the foundations of every sect of the
present-day PuranistS and Tantrists are to be sought in that
romantic religion of love, which expressed itself simultane-
ously in Mahay^nism and also in the isms of the so-called
Brahmanic order. And as has been pointed out in the preced-
ing sections, philosophically, also, neo-Hinduism and Sino-
Japanese Buddhism are the same.' For if the Jodo Sect of

MODERN HINDUISM 301

Japan be regarded as Buddhistic, the. Vaishnava sects of
India which are equal advocates of Bhakti or love and de-
votion are all Buddhists. If it is good Buddhism in China
and Japan to worship a god of war, a patron-saint of
children, a protector of roads, and so forth, the Hindus or
Brahmanists of India who worship Kartika the warrior-god,
and Kali the goddess of terror. Mother Sttala the defender
from smallpox. Mother Sasthi the protector of offsprings,
and a thousand others, are equally Buddhists.

Regarding the Sino-Japanese Buddhism, therefore, the
following brilliant suggestion of Sister Nivedita in her in-
troduction to Okakura's Ideals of the East may be taken as
scientifically established:

"Rather must we regard it as the name given to the
vast synthesis known as Hinduism, when received by a
foreign consciousness. For Mr. Okakura, in dealing with
the subject of Japanese art in the ninth century, makes it
abundantly clear that the whole mythology of the East,
and not merely the personal doctrine of the Buddha,
was the subject of interchange. Not the Buddhaising but
the Indianising of. the Mongolian mind, was the process
actually at work — much as if Christianity should receive in
some strange land the name of Franciscanism, from its first
missionaries."

Are the Chinese and Japanese, then, Hindus? The
answer is "yes. " Bp.t at once the difficulty arises. as to the
answer to the. question — "What is Hinduism?" Whatever
it is, it is not the name of a religion. Strictly speaking, it is
a convenient ethnological, term adopted by foreigners . to
understand, certain races of men, just as 'Barbarian' or
Mlechchha ox, Yavana is used - by certain, Asiatic peoples to
describe the European and other foreign races. . :.. , ,

302 CHINESE REUGION

The people of India themselves know their faiths to be
Vaishnavism, Sauraism, Shaivaism, Shaktaism, Brahmaism,
Aryaism and other isms according to the cult or principal
tenet. The term Hindu is not to be found in any Sanskrit
work, ethnological, political or religious. If thus 'Hinduism'
cannot be the name for the religion of the Indians, it is
prima facie absurd that it should be the name for the
identical religions of the sons of Han and the Yamato race.

Should, therefore, the religions of the three peoples be
all known by the name of Buddhism? i.e., Should the
people of India import from China and Japan back to its
native land the name so popular there still? Evidently the
answer must be in the affirmative. In spite of the ambiguity
associated with the term as with Christianity (as explained
in a previous chapter). Buddhism seems to be the most
acceptable name.

But the term Buddhism also is objectionable, since it
pins down the thoughts and feelings of people to a certain
historic person or suggests the exclusive sway of a certain
deity. This would be quite out of keeping with the spirit of
Asia. The mentality of the three peoples has grown
through the ages, evolving fresh personalities and deities in
almost every generation. It is the historic birth-right of
every Asian to create his own god, his own saint, and his
own avaidra.

In matters spiritual every individual in Asia has ever
chosen his or her love with his or her own eyes. Freedom of
conscience leading even to seemingly anarchic individualism
is the characteristic of the Far East ; it has given birth to an
incalculably varied godlore and saintlore. No personal
name is thus adequate to express the ever-growing religious
consciousness of the people in San-goku,

MODERN HINDUISM 303

Botli the terms, Hinduism and Buddhism, are unfortu-
nate, and should, if possible, be abandoned. But in these
days when age-long historic tradition has solidified and
"polarised" the terms, and national superstitions have grown
up around them it is out of the question to do so. Besides,
neither would the so-called Hindus of India probably like to
be known as Buddhists because this would involve exclusive
faith in a certain deity ; nor the so-called Buddhists of China
and Japan as Hindus, because this would be confounding
their nationality.

It is clear, however, that for scientific purposes, e.g.^
for cultural anthropology and comparative religion, the
eight hundred millions of human beings in the Far East
should be considered as professing the same faith. And if
following the example of Christianity which under one
abstract name embraces a thousand and one denominations,
sects, cults, orders, or churches, we are called upon to
select a term that would embrace the Ti-tsangists, the
Jizoists, the Shivaists and thousand other ists of China,
Japan and India, I venture to think that such a name is to
be found in Taoism, Shintoism or Sandtanism, z>. , the
religion of the eternal way, michz or marga. And the
metaphysics of that great ism of mankind is Monism in
Pluralism.

CHAPTER XII.

Epilog-ue:

The Study of Asiatic Sociology

I began witli the hypothesis : "What pass for Bud-
dhism in the lands of Confucius and Shinto cult are but
varieties of the same faith that is known as Tantric and
Pauranic Hinduism in modern Ti'encAu {Heaven) or Tenjiku,
the land of Sakya the Buddha. ' '

Indications of the affinity as well as the methods of
investigation have been presented in the foregoing pages.
For a complete verification of the hypothesis one has only
to make a parallel and comparative study of Sino- Japanese
Buddhism and modem Hinduism through their historic
landmarks.

It would be necessary to have recourse to the ' 'philoso-
phical method" of inquiry. This would involve (1) an
analysis of the concepts underlying the mythology, cere-
monials, superstitions, pilgrimages, etc., of Sino-Japanese
Buddhism, and (2) an analysis of the concepts underlying
the mythology, ceremonials, superstitions, pilgrimages, etc.,
of those who regulate their • socio-religious life according to
the teachings of the Pur&nas and Tantras. The two analyses
will yield the same results and establish a common psycho-
logical basis of the three peoples.

Tantra-s\.\iK\&s in English are few. Avalon's translation
of Mahd-nifvanaTantra from Sanskrit, Hymns to the Goddess
2xA Principles of Tantra {Tantra-tativd) are recent works.
According to "The Prabuddha Bharata" (or "The Awaken-
ed India"), a journal conducted by the Vivek-Snandists,

THK STUDY OF ASIATIC SOCIOI^OGY 305

" educated minds in the East as well as in the West will be,
ere long, disabused of all that mass of prejudice that they
have allowed to gather round the name of Tantra. * * *
Tantrikism, in its real sense, is nothing but the Vedic
religion struggling with wonderful success to reassert itself
amidst all those new problems of religious life and discipline
which later historical events and developments thrust
upon it. ' '

Secondly, it would be necessary to have recourse to the
" historical method " of inquiry. This would involve

(1) a study of the growth, modification and develop-
ment through the ages, of the mythology, superstitions, etc.,
of Sino-Japanese Buddhists. Visser's exhaustive study of
Ti-tsang (Jizo), epoch by epoch, down to the twentieth cen-
tury, and Getty's Gods of Northern Buddhism are instances
of this method.

(2) a study of the growth, modification and develop-
ment, through the ages, of the mythology, superstitions, etc.,
of the Vaishnavas, Shaktas, Jainas, Shaivas, and other sects
of India. Sir R.G. Bhandarkar's Vatshnavism, Shaivaism
and Minor Religious Svstems in the Encyclopaedia of Indo-
Aryan Research (Strassburg), and Palit's treatment of
Shaivaism in Adyer Gambhtrd are instances of this method.

The historical studies will yield the result that the
pluralistic or polytheistic faiths of Buddhist China and'
Japan as well as of Hindu India are but divergent streams
descended from the same fountain. The brilliant period of
the mighty Tangs (A.D. 618-905) in Chinese history, —
synchronous with the Nara Period (A.D. 710-794) and
Kyoto Period (A.D. 782-1182) of Japanese, and the epoch
of Imperialism continuing both in Southern and Northern

306

CHINBSE REI/IGION

India all the traditions of the Vikxainadityan Renaissance ;— '
which was signalised by the piropagandism and literary
activity of such synthetic philosopher^saints as Hiuen
Thsang(A.D. 602-664), Kobo Daishi (A.D. 774-835) and
Sankar-acharya (A.D. 788-i850),^-was the most important
age for the inauguration of that common fountain of love^
faith, and hope, out of which the^ Hwangh-o and the Yangtse,
the Yodo and the Sumida, the Narmada and the Godavari,
and the Indus and the Ganges have been regularly fed for
over one millennium. It is not the purpose, of this work to
trace the history of that practical idealism, romantic posi-
tivism and assimilative eclecticism, which have been the
inspiration of eight hundred million souls during the last
thousand years. I stop just at the threshold of the great
Asiatic Unity.

IfiDEX

Aborigiues in India, 175.

Absolute, 107; good, 14; unity of Asia,

280.
Abstractions, monistic, 278.
Abul Fazl statistician, 202.
Academy Plato's, 39.
Adhikdra, doctrine of, in Caste-system,
^ 207. i

Adi Buddha, 289.
Adyer Gambhtrd a Bengali work, 299,

305.
.^geans of Crete, 32.
.<?Esop's Fables derived from Hindu

■work tbrougli Persian, 232.
Esthetics Indian, 289, 291.
Afghanisthan, 81.
Age of. Academies in India, 50; Chivalry,

356; Confucius, 60; criticism and

concentration, 38; foreign travel,

241; giants, 50; Hindu Renaissance;

218; Image-worship not yet come,

137; Jesus, 49;, Pharaohs, 259;

Puranas, 208; S&kyasimha, feudal

in politics,, 51; "storm and stress,"

39; -wonders, 218.
"Aggressiveness", 169; of Asia, 235.
Agni, Fire-God of the Hindus, 7, 22,

70; cf. Chinese, Hwei-luh.
Agnostic, Confucius not an, 65.
Ahi, Sanskrit , word for serpent, "The

Cloud Serpent" in Vedicliterature,

27 ; cf . Chinese Dragon.
Ahimsa Sanskirt for Non-killing

(Mercy), 66, 228.
Ahura Mazdah, 148.
"Airy nothings" with "local habita-
^ tion,'!131..

Aiyangar Krishnasw&my Mr., 221, 250.
Aizen, Goddess of Jap. Buddhism, 295.
Ajanta Paintings, date of, 24, 249.
Akbar the Great, 90.
Alexander, 38 39, 40, 92; campaign, 82;

forged a new chain, 83; conquests

fruitless, 161.
Alexandrias, cities named after Alex-
ander in Western Asia and Bgypt,

42, 83, 93, 99.
Alexandria connected with India by

three routes, 42, 95.
Alexandrian, investigators, 104, sweep

of the Hindus, 228.
Alliances between Bast and West, 93.

Amarasimha, the lexicographer, 221-22.
Ameer AH, the historian, 234.
American, humorist, 257; melting pot

193; of to-day, 84; poet, 261.
Americanised, Christianity, 258.
Amida in Japan, 297.
Amir of Kabul, 203.
Amitabha, in Chinese Buddhism, 284.
Amitragh&ti, Sans . , " slay er of foes , " 94.
Amulets in Atharva-Veda 28, 29.
Analects 73, 74, 176; of Sakyasimha, 53.
Anatole France, the cynical author, 42,

43; standpoint in Sinologj', 49.
Anaxagorases of India, 50.
Ancestor-cult, in China 11, India, 12,

13; Japan, 12; as an inspiring force,

34; not a predominent feature

of Shintoism, 273.
The Aficient East 153.
Ancient India by Aiyangar, 221; by

Rapson, 177.
Andhra Monarchs, of South India, 190.
Anesaki Prof., 192.
Anga, parts of Jaina literature, 105,
Anglicised, Christianit}-, 258.
Animals as gods in Chinese religion, 25.
Animistic, 33.
Annam, 246, 257.
Ante-Chin Dynasty (Chou), 49.
Anthropology Cultural or Psycho-social,

26, 274, 303; Physical, 26, 204;

Political, 161.
Anthropomorphic, 33; Godlore, 143.
Anti-Asokan propaganda, 124.
Antioch, 96, 160; Christians at, 156.
Antiochus, King of Syria, 94, 95; advised

by Asoka, 160.
Apocalypticism, 159; ists, 54, 99.
Apocrypha a?id Pseudepigi'cipha, 152.
Apollo transformed into Buddha, 100,

167.
Apostles, of "Enlightenment," 37; of

Hindu Culture, 256.
Appearances, a work on travel in India,

China, Japan and America, 1.
Appendix, of Asia, Eastern and Central

Europe as, 233; to Indo-Chinese

Culture, Japan an, 262.
Arabs, Chinese^ trade with, 243; in

European Renaissance, 182; Is-
lamite,, 233; Shipping, 241; Writers,

244.,

308

INDEX

Aristocracy Rajput, mixed race, 201.

Aristotle, 37, 70; Alexander the pupil
of, 93 ; of India, 50.

Armageddon in Hindu literature, 110.

Arnold Matthew, 37, 226.

"Arrested" sections of mankind, 256.

Art, of G&ndhSra, 166; of Poetry and
Music, 132 ; -Consciousness Chinese,
enriched by Hindu, 291; -critics
Chinese, 254-5, Hsieh-Ho, 291; In-
dian Nationalist School of, 293;
-traditions are common, 289.

Artists, Graeko-Roman, Hindu patron-
age of, 198; same as lover, 211.

Arthasdsira 84; a generic name for
Hindu Economics and Politics, 84
103; the Hindu Chou-li (Text-book
of Politics), 52; 208, 279.

Arthurian romance, 185.

Aryan, 5; Culture, 51; Settlements in
India, 176; the term, 197; -isationin

^ Culture, 176.

Aryabhata the Hindu Mathematician,
221.

Ary&varta, Northern India, 203.

Asceticism in Ancient China, 30; in
India, 31.

Asia, 160; Concert of, 236; Expansion
of, 234; expunged from the map of
the world, 224; Minor, 99, 155;
misinterpreted and done injustice to,
56: school of, Hindusthin became,
229; "-sense," 241,, 243; spirit of,
Kilid&sa, 229, 260; synonym for
Hindu in the Middle Ages, 232;
Trans-Himaiayan, 282; "-trotters,"
241.

Asian, birthright of every, 302; -isation
of Russia, 233.

Asiatic, Culture, 182; Encyclopaadists,
41; history, 39; history, brightest
period in, 230; life-stream, fountain-
head of, 183; lake, the Mediter-
ranean Sea, 233; Master-minds, 40;
Mentality, Basis of, 278; Mind, 276;
Sociology, 55; Sphere of influence
in Europe, 234; Standard of science,
245.

"Asiatic Society of Bengal," 298.

Asiatic Unity, absolute and relative, 280;
a philosophical necessity, 279; not
all due to religious, commercial or
political intercourse, 4; pioneers of,
182; threshold of, 306.

Asoka, 142, 227; Creed really embodies
"the spirit of Hindusth^n," 90;
Edicts, 76 89; Hindu Emperor
Contemporary of "First Chinese
Emperor, 81; of Modern Asia, 89.

Assimilation, Indian Capacity for, 202;

in Japan, 265.
Assyrian, 32, 184; Monarchy, 161.
Aston Mr., 270, 273, 277.
Astrology, 49, 63.

Asiika; Province in Japan, 247, 267.
Aswaghosha, 142, 143, 163, 208, 298.
Aswamedha, Sans. Horse Sacrifice, 124.
Atharva-Veda, one of |;he oldest Hindu

Scriptures, 26, 27, 28, 70.
Atheist, Confucius not an, 60.
Athens, 38, 99.
Atman, the self or soul in Hindu

metaphysics, 26.
Attila the Hun, 233.
Aufklariing, or explanation, criticism,

etc., in England and Europe, 37.
Augustan era, 50; of Chinese Culture 4,

252.
Aurangzib, Emperor of India, 88.
Avalon Mr., 287, 304.
Avalokita, Avalokiteswara, 140, 281, 291.
Avatdra (human incarnation of Divini-
ty), 115, 126, 128, 145, 175, 282;

William of Orange an, 215.
"The Awakened India," 304.
The Awakening of Faith, 143, 208, 217.
Ayodhya, Capital ancient Hindu 113.
^j/Mrrffz/a, Comprehensive Sanskrit term

meaning Science of Life, including

all the biological and medical

sciences, 52; -ists, 99.
Babylon, 157; Intercourse of China

with, 96.
Bacon Francis, 208, 223; Prof., 146, 155;

Roger, 223,
Bactria, Hellenistic schools of art in,

164.
Bagdad, 232; connected with Hanseatic

towns, 235.
Bagehot Mr. , 72.
Balance of Accounts between Asia and

Europe, 160.
Balfour Mr., 25.
Band of VySsas in India, 50.
Banerji the historian 200, 249.
"Bangiya Sahitya Parishat" (Academy

of Bengali literature) 195.
"Banks of the Seven Rivers" referring

to India, 32.
"Barbarian", 38, 81 92; hordes, 162;

Hindus in touch with, 189; of

Scythia, 233.
Barnett Mr. , 210.
Baronies controlled by stars, 62.
BStsSyana, Author of Hindu Sexual

Science, Kdma-sutra, 102; 291.
Baur, founder of Bible-criticism, 155.
Bazin, French scholar, 251.
Beal Mr., 237, 251.
' 'Believing where we cannot prove," 163,

INDEX

309

Benares, in India, 51.

Bengal, 48, 51, 81; a "great power,"
249; Bay of, 181; bourgeoise mo-
dern, a mixed race, 201; life and
thought, 175; modern Buddhism
in, 298; Tamil influnces on, 293;
Bmpire, 203, 249; language, 200,
299.

Benten, Japanese Saras-^vati, (goddess
of learning) , 292.

Bergen Rev. , 59.

Bergsonian, 32.

Bernaigne, French Vedic Scholar, 23.

"Better fifty years of Europe than a
cycle of Cathay" 63, 258.

Bhakta, i.e. Lover, 143; of China, 216;
Fa-Hien, a, 182.

Bhakti or Heart-Culture, 144; or Love,
Faith and Devotion, 210.

Bhindarkar Sir, 209, 218, 305.

Bharhut, Buddhist stupas at, in India,
115, 133.

Bhikshus (monks), 99, 123.

Bhoga, Sanskrit for enjoyment, 228.

Bhupdla-stotra, a Jaina hymn, 211.

Bible, 46, 54, 56; Chinese, 60; criticism.
School of, 155; literature, 114;
MahdySna, 142; of Neo-Hinduism
281; of the Gupta age, 210.

Bigots, neither Hindu nor Chinese nor
Japanese, 262.

Bindus&ra, successor of Hindu Emperor
Chandragupta, 85, 94, 95.

Binyon Laurence, 98, 100.

"Biography of great men," history, 59.

Biological study of social phenomena,
55.

Birth, of Buddhism, almost simultaneous
in China and India, 145 ; -place of
Buddhism, 288.

Bismarck, 41, 91.

Biwa, Japanese lute, 292.

Blood intermixture in India, 195, 203.

Bodhidharma, first Chinese patriarch,
183; South Indian prince, 192.

Bodhisattvas or Buddhas in posse 143,
hierarchy of, 151, 286, 293; TitsSng
(Jizo), 283.

Book, oj Changes ( " Yi-King" ) a Chinese
Classic, 29, 47, 275; of History
("Shu-King"), Chinese Classic, 6
20, 47; of jubilees, 153; of Odes,
or of Poetry ( "She-King' ' ) , Chinese
Classic, 6, 11, 20, 44, 47; of Rites, 58.

Brahma, the over-soul in Hindu
Metaphysics, 26.

Brahma, a Hindu god 67, 167, 278;
identified with Avalokiteswara, 287;
Japanese Boten, 397.

Brahmana, 66, 85 , 87 , fellow passengers of
Fa-Hien, 242; Asoka harsh towards,
89; Bishop, in Japan, 246; priestly
caste, 52, 118; priestly caste must
fight, 86; term, 205.

Brdhmana, the title of a particular class
of Hindu literature — a branch of the
Vedas (Sacred scripture), 10.

Brahmanical, 104; Order, Isms, 300.

Brahmanism, a name given to Indian
religion by foreigners, 26; . -ist,
students of Brdhmana literature
(section of Vedas), 113; a Hindu
miscalled, 122.
, Brandes Georg, the Danish literary
critic, 42.

Brooke, Mr. Stopford, 56.

Brihat Samhita, Sanskrit work, 71,222.

British, Empire, Feudatories of, 200;
Museum, 56.

Brunfels the botanist, 104.

Buddha, 69 ; as Great Teacher and as
God, 281; cult, 105, 141; disap-
pearance of, as god, from India, 145;
in the west, created by Laotsze,
253 ; the god, 44, 92 ; made out of
Apollo in Central Asian Sculpture,
100 ; oldest image of, in Ceylon,
136; Real Presence of, 135; (i.e.
Enlightened) the title of Sakya, 4 ;
worship to be distinguished from
the teaching of SSkya the Buddha,
177.

Buddhachinga Indian priest, 180.

Buddhist, 66, 263 ; China 128 ; China,
Deities of, 283; literature, 112; of
China and Japan really Hindu,
296; scarf, 266; so-called, 4, 291;
Tartar, 233.

"Buddhist China," "Buddhist India,"
Meaning of, 178, 179.

Buddhist Art in India, 119, 197.

Buddhist China, 266.

Buddhist India, 52, 70.

Buddhist Literature in China, 237.

Buddhism, 91 ; an ambiguous term, 177
Asia one even without, 3, 132, 280; a
Shinto, 275 ; before the rise of, 52
history of Chinese, 4, 139, 165, 180
188, 216, 237, 251, 254, 257, 281
284, 291, 301 ; in modern Hinduism
287 ; in Japan, 188, 203, 257
281, 285, 292, 295, 299; in Korea,
188; not pessimistic, 78; said to
have first come to China, 96
strictly speaking, equivalent to
Mahayana, 142 ; the term, 302 .
theistic, 67 ; Trans-Himalayan,
295.

Buddhism by Eitel, 98.

310

INDEX

Buddhism as a Reliis^on, 76, 85. . .

Buddhism in Translatio7i, 19,

Buckle, 72.

Buhler Georg, 72.

Bull of Excommunication, 89.

Burma, 281 ; India in touch with China

through, 192.
"Burner of Books," 83.
Burning of Confucian text, 40. i
Bury Prof. , 82.

Byron, 108. ■ ■ ■

Byzantine Empire, 233.
Byzantium, 153.
Bushido, 188; influenced by Meditation,

255 ; Japanese Chivalry, 88.
Csesar, 54, 55, 95.
"CEBsaro-Papisni," i.e. Headship in both

temporal and spiritual affairs, 4; of

Asoka, Indian Emperor, 77.
Carlyle 108, 109, 125; view of history,

59.
Carnegie, 88.
Carpathian Mountains, frontier of Asia,

233, 235.^
Cairo connected with Hanseatic towns^

235. ;

Calendar of Jade 284.
"Calendrical mode of life" in China,

120.
Calvins of India, 202. i

Cambodia, a man of, in China, 239, 246.
Canon, Buddhist, 180; Jaina, 105; 'of

Chinese Painting, Six, 291.
Canonical Books of the Old Testament,

148.
Canton, 192, 242, 243.
Capitals Chinese, 238-40.
" Captive Greece captured Rome," 162.
Caste System in Indian life, 204.
Catalogue of the Chinese Translation

of the Buddhist Tripitaka, 240.
Catechism Confucian, 76.
Cathay, 63, 261 ; a cycle of, 258.
Celebrities Indian, of to-day, 125.
Celestials, 24, 32, 34, 35, 40, 45, 58, 60,

62, 68, 168; as Confucius "writ

large," 49.
Celtic legends, 13.
Central Asian, 95, 96, 97; and West Asian

explorations by Wu Ti, 138; Attila

the Plun, 233 ; Migrations, 199; re-
gions, 189.
Central Provinces in India, 81.
Cessation-of-Miseryism {Nirvdnism) ,

79, 177, 281.
Ceylon, 94, 185, 242, 281; Oldest image

of Buddha in, 136.
Chaitanya, the mediaeval Reformer of

Bengal, 48, 202, 224.
Chaldseans, 193.

Chaiukyas, Empire of, in South India.
248. .

Chamberlain Mr. 268. ' <

Chandragupta, Brahmanist, 80, 87, 122,
198; a Jaina (?) 85; MauryaEm-
peror,40;not'apedant,84; worshipper
of Nature-Forces, 77.

Chandragupta II., Gupta Emperor; 191;
patron of Kalidasa, 222. '

Change in Chinese life, 62.

"Changeless P^ast," 56,

Chang-'i'ao-ling in the Development of
Taoism, 174. '

Changh, Chinese King, 141.

Charaka-School , Ayurvedists, chemists,
botanists, zoologists, and medical
practitioners, 52, 99.

ChAra.na,^ Indian word for strolling bards-
or minstrels, 44.

Charles Rev. 148, 153.

Charlemagne, 185.

Chaucer, 208.

Chau-Ju-Kua, Inspector of foreign trade,
244.

Chau-Ju-fCuO. by Hirth and RockhiU,
242, 243.

Chavannes Mr., 27.

Chen Dynasty, 240.

Chh&ndogya Upanishad, 66, 124.

"A child is a plaything for an hour,"
278.

China, greater, than Confucius, 49, 56 ;
mastfr-minds of, 240; naipe, from
Tsin vStatc, 81; cf. Tzinista, 242.

China, by Parker, 9?.

"China Review" The 62, 117.

Chinese, Antiquity, 26; Buddhism, 139,
165, 180, 188, 216, 237, 251, 254,
257, 281, 284, 291, 301; Classics, 6,
20, 29, 47; Contributions to World's
Culture, 236 ; Culture, Augustan age
of 252; Culture, 4; drama,' Hindu
influence on, 251; genius, elasticity
and adaptability of, 64 ; CUA, 107 ;
God.s, 25;'Godlore, 3; "Herodotus"
48; historian, 40; Intellect, 31;
Learning, SungSchool of, in Japan,
264; life, Islam in, 243; life under
the Tangs, 251 ; literature in JTapan
and on India, 246; Maritime activity,
242; Mentality, 3, 22; Mind, 49,
65; Napoleon, 81, 83; official life,
47 ; people wrongly described as
non-religious,' 60; philosophical
terms in Nihongi, 259; philosophy,
31 ; religion, 57 ; religious indif-
ferentisni, 2; Renaissance, 230, 251;
Scholars, 240; Shintoisni, 11; Socio-
religious life parallel to Hindu, 25;

INDEX

311

XarS, 292; Vyasay Confucius, SO, S9J

Chinese, Them.

Chinese Buddhism, 71, 254.

Chinese Repository, 130.

Chinese Sociology j 21, 63, 141.

Chivalry, age cA, 256.

Chi- Yun, Chinese for' 'life of painting, ' '
254.

Chola Empire, 94, 203 ; ■ in Southern
India, 49; powerful fleet of; 241.

Chou Period 6, 9, 11, 32, 33, 45, 46, 47,
58, 116, 240;

Chou-li, the oldest work on politics^ in
Chinese, 46, 49.

Christ, 43, 62; cult later than Rtma-
cult, Krishna-cult and Buddha-cult,
155 ; -ian doctrine, 91^ Europe,
defence of, against Islslffli '233;
-ianity, 90; an ambiguous term, 175;
177, 303; may have the name of
Franciscanism, ■ 301; ' -ology, 155;
parallel from, 146.

" Chronicles of Japan," 268.

Chronology Kushan, need be revised,
142; Kushan, tentative, 163; Com-
parative, 223. '

Chu-fan-chi, Chinese work on foreign
countries, 244.

Chu-Hsi (Chutsze), the great Sung
commentator of Confucianism) 254;
264.

Chu Kingdom in China, 141.

Chu-Ping, Chinese author, 4.

Chun-tsin period, (B.C. 722-481), 46.

Chwang, a Taoist Doctor, 57.

Chuangtszi, mystic, 30; the great Doctor
of Taoism and its second founder,
102, 107, 108, 111, 140, 160.

Chuangtszi, Mystic, Moralist and Social
Reformer, 102.

Classics Chinese, 6, 20, 49 ; praise
Taoism, 57 ; mention ascetic prac-
tices, 31.

Classical, Evirope, the last word of, 40;
Hellas, 38.

Classicism of Goethe, 91.

CUve, 1.

"Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe,"
108.

CooT^ ("The lyaws'O, Manu's, 54;

Cranmer-Byng, 111, 252.

Cognates i.e. born together, 151.

Colonisingperiod, American poet of, 261.

Common, elements in the Folk-Reli-
gion of China and India, 26; fund
of religious ideas gives birth to
Buddhalore, Christlore, Rdttlalore,
157; origin of Buddhism, Shaivaism,
Vaishnavism, 145.

Comparative, Chronology, 223; History,

171; -Historical Method, 41; Me-
thod, 267 ; Philology,. 26 ; Religion,
35, 303.' •

Compass, Mariner's, introduced into
Europe through Mongols., 235.

Complete Edition of the Philosophers
prior to Tsu Dynasty, 101.

"Concert of," '''Asia," 236; Hindusthan
the heart of; 245; "Europe," 88,
236.

" Conqueror- of the Armies,-'' 285.

Conquests, influences of MSratha, 203.

"Convection-current," in Indian So-
cial life, 206. .

Consciousness, Asiatic, foundations of,
■ 276 ; Yamato, 236:

Constantinople, capture of, 174, 230.

Constitution, Ancient Japanese, 267.

Consul-generals of Hindu Emperor, 95.

" Contemporary Review, " The, 251,

" Contending States " in China, 80.

Continental faiths 'in Japan, 267.

Coom&rasw&my Dr. 293.

Cophene (Kabul), 238-39.

' ' Corrupter of Youths ' ' 53.

Cosmas, 242.

Cosmic, Order, 14; System, 275.

Cotton in Japan, from India, 245.

Council of Jainas, 123.

"Country-made" [Swadeshi) religion of
the Japanese, 267.

"Courts of Ivove" 220.

Court of Peking, 170.

Cow-worship in Vedic religion, 28.

Creative Evolution 32.

Creed of Half fapan, The 94, 147.

Criticism, in China, 254; Higher, 41.

Critique of Pure Reason, 37.

Cross-section of world-cvilture, 32.

Crucifixion, not much noticed 42.

Crusades, history of, 232.

Cunningham's Stupa of Bharhut, 133.

Cycles ( Yugdntaras) in Hindu religious
history, 127.

"Cynic," 99; 159.

Cyrenaic School of Philosophy, 95.

Confucius, 32, 36, 40, 41, 58,65, 80, 267 ;
about Shinto, '275; a mortal among
mortals, 48 ; a Taoist, 57 ; belief in
godlore, 68 ; Chinese Vyfisa, 59,
150; -cult, a cult of World-Forcgs,
176; deified; 174 ; follower of, in
Japan, 264; his only original work,
50; Images of , 130; interview'with
Lao-tsze, 57; in the East, instructed
by Laotsze, 253; " Confucius =
China," 563; is not China, 49;
legends unknown to, 63 ; made
Duke and Earl, 48; not the founder
of any school, 59; not a god, 53;

312

INDEX

not yet deified, 132; not yet studied
■with reference to the historic
perspective, 56 ; one of. the many
intellectuals, 47 ; the god, 92, 146 ;
the historic person, 44, 48 ; the
Judge and Librarian, 47 ; the
Pisistratus of China,176; the Sociolo-
gist, 74; the teacher of ' 'propriety, ' '
41; worship of, 148.
Confucian, 237 ; Idolatry, 129, maxims,
265 ; shoes, 266 ; temple, first, 132,
140 ; texts, 40 ; texts in Japan, 268;
-ism, 26, 253; not firmly established,
49 ; Sung, in Japan, 264 ; the study
of Chinese Classics, 60 ; the term
discussed, 175 ; the term a misnomer,
61.
Confucianism and its Rivals, 1, 60, 106.

Confucianist, 99, 263, 274; akin to
Indians in religious beliefs, 61 ;
arch-enemy of, Chuangtszi, 102 ;
Japanese, of the Kyoto Period,
264; of Confucianists, 83.

Cult, of Avalokita and TSrS, 288; of
Ivove and Romanticism, 145 ; of the
Many, 279 ; of Nature-Energies in
Japanese Shintoism, 273 ; of Na-
ture-Forces 60; of World-Forces, 61,
116, 282.

Cultural Anthropology, 26, 274, 303.

Culture, Aryan, 51; Asiatic, 182, 258;
Encyclopaedia of Hindu, 67; -history,
43, 65; Japanese, 257; -pioneer, 13;
Manu, 52; pre-Christian, 93; Sara-
cenic 234 ; Synthesis of, with Faith,
265.

Cuvierian, 37.

Dai Nippon, 89, 267.

Dakshinatya Southern India, 203.

Damashii Jap. word for "Spirit," 90.

Dante, 228; Divine Comedy 56.

"Dark Ages," 184; 230; the only for
Asia, 224.

Darkness, Region of, in Chinese Bud-
dhism, 284.

Darsana, the six systems of Hindu
Philosophy, so called, 52; SSnkhya,
66; -ists, 99; -India, 178.

Dasabodha, 225.

Darwinian age, poet laiureate of, 261.

Das Citralakshana, 255, 291.

Dasyus, aboriginal people iu India, 201.

Date of Kanishka the Kushan king of
India, tentative, 142.

Davis, 131, 172.

Daydnanda, modern Reformer, of the
Punjab, in India, 125.

Decalogue Hindu, 73.

Deccan in South India, 167, 248; -isation
(South-Indianisation) of India, 230.

Declaration of Indulgence, 89.
Decline and Fall of the Jioman Empire,

162, 234.
De Groot, 13, 25, 30, 57, 58, 41, 121, 128.
Deification, of Confucius, I/aotsze,
Sakya, and Mahavira, 137; of
Confucius, 174; of Ivaotsze not yet,
125; of human beings, 270; of
Ivaotsze, 173.
Deity, 60; Eternal, in Buddhism, 143.
Delhi, 202; of the Japanese, 247.
Democratic Vistas by Whitman, 278.
Demonology, 30.

Dendrology in Chinese religion, 25.
Descartes, 223.

"Description of Barbarous Peoples" a
Chinese work ( Chu-fan-chi) , 244.
Determining lucky sites, 71.
Devendranatha, modern Reformer, of

Bengal, in India, 126.
Devotion, one whirlpool of, 216; "to
something afar from the sphere of
our sorrow," 144, 228.
"Dew-receiving vase" in Taoism, 121.
Dhatnma, the special creed adumbrated
by Indian Emperor Asoka, 77; 88,
90, 142, 160.
Dhammapada, Buddhist work in PSli,

54, 76.
Dharma God, 298.
Dharma, Sanskrit word for 'law,' 'order'

'religion' or "Tao" 14, 149.
Dharmapila, Hindu Emperor, 4, 249.
Dharma-Sastras, Socio-religions, Socio-
economic, and Socio-political trea-
tises in Sanskrit, 52.
Dhyana Sans. , meditation, in Confucian-
ism, 254; in Sukrantti, 255.
Dialogues, 144.
Diamond Sutra, 181.
"Diastole" in living organisms, 38.
Dickinson Prof., I.

Digha Nikaya PSli Buddhist treatise, 76.
Digvijiya, Sanskrit for "Conquest of

quarters", 185, 217.
Director of Fire, 22.
"Dispassion" practised in China, 30.
"Dissertation on Roast Pig" 35.
District-God, 22.

"Distance lends enchantment," 48.
"Divinest of Men," Confucius admired

as, 48, 125.
Divinities of Japanese Buddhism, 295.
Doctrine, of "Infallibility", 265; of the
Mean, 74, 176; of Non-Resistance,
53; of Relativity, 41; of Renuncia-
tion, 281; of Variety, 277.
Doctor Sukra, the Hindu philosopher,

on Art, 290.
Dosho, Japanese scholar, 247.

INDEX

313

Dragon ia- China and India, 27.

Dravidiarts, so-called, 175.

Dream, the famous, of the Chinese
Emperor Ming Ti, 139, 237.

Dualistic Conception in ancient Chinese
and Hindu Metaphysics, 30.

Duke Confucilis, 48.

Dunning Prof. , on Christian Pessimism,
54.

Durgi, Hindu goddess, 289, 293. .

' 'Always do the'Duty that lies nearest , ' '
119.

Duties, Five in China, 75; of Man in
India, 76.

The Duty of Kings, Hindu theory, 105.

Dynamic, Asiatic history, 258; pictures,
261.

Dynasties Chinese, 237-40.

The Dynasties of the Kali Yuga, 209.

Earl Confucius, 48.

Earth, 21; God in Chinese religion, 9, 25
famale principle in Chinese meta-
physics, 30; spirit of, in India, 69.

East, 40, 99; changeless, 56; city of the,
Pataliputra, 85; Idol-worship in the,
129; immovable, alleged, 64; Eng-
land's mediffival intercourse with
the, 194; "East plunged in thought
again," The 81; "East is East",
234; "East gorgeous", 226.

Eastern, India, origin of Nirvanism in,
163; laymen from, in China, 251;
Empire, 98; Europe, 234; Tsin
Dynasty, 238; Wei Dynasty, 239.

Eclipse in Chinese religion, 22.

Early Religious Poetry of Persia, 148,
153.

Eclecticism, apotheosis of, 85; Assimi-
lative, 306; devotional, 217; in
Japan, 262.

Edict, of Asoka, 76, 77; of Nantes,
Revocation of, 89.

"Educational Rescript" of Japan, 89.

Edkins Mr., 71, 254.

Egypt, 94; Hermetic books of, 154;
Indian intercourse with, 191 ; -ian,
32; monarchy, 151, 184; ports, 96;
-ologists as necrologists, 55.

"Eightfold Path," 72, 76, 79, 177.

Eitel Mr., 98.

Ekajata or Blue TirS, 292.

JEkam, Sanskrit for the One Supreme
Being, 34, 278; the idea weak in
Shintoism, 273.

Elixir Vitae, quest of, in Taoism, 121,
173.

Embassies, 94; Hellenistic, at Hindu

Capital, 85,
Embodiment of Hindu India, Raghu-
vamsam as, 228.

Emma-0, Japanese Yama, 296.

"Emotion expressed in words " Chinese
theory aboijt poetry, 110.

"Emperor First," 83; Maurya, 52; of
India gets Greek princess as wife,
82;

Empire-builders, 40, 83.

Empire, Chinese divided, 168; in medi-
seval India, 248; of the Guptas, 184.

Encyclopsedia, 99; Britannica, 56;
Chinese and Hindu, 27; Indian,
127; of Hindu Culture, 67; "of
Indo- Aryan Research," 305; -ic
Culture, 59; -ists, 37, 50; Asiatic, 41.

Energism, 55; objective philosophy of,
227; -ists, Nietzschein Vivek-
ananda, 126.

Energy (Sakti) , 287-8; manifestations
of, 289.

England, 89; Heptarchy in, 80; in 1915,
56; mysticism in, 108; "under
foreign rule," 193; under the
Stuarts, morals in, 170 ; -lish Deists,
37.

"Enlightened" One, 146.

"Enlightenment", 37, 89.

Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art,
84.

Epoch, of Concentration, 38; of Consoli-
dation, 168; of expansion, 38; of
Imperialism in Northern and
Southern India, 305; of nationalism
in China and India, 81; of Sturm
und drang 39; of Sturm und drang
in India, 50.

Eponymous Culture-pioneers, 13, 52.

Equation "Confucius =China," 56.

Era, Augustan, in India, 50; of Enlight-
enment {Meiji) in Japan, 89, of
Indo-Chinese Relationships, New,
182; of modernism in Europe, the
dark age for Asia, 224; of Romanti-
cism, 216.

Erotics or Sexual Science of the Hindus,
102.

The Essays of Elia; The Essay on the
Human Understanding, 37; on
Man, 37; of Milton, 170.

Eternal, 128; Essence, 109; Order of
the Asians, 62, 276; questions, 65;
Sage, 44; Religion, the proper name
for Asian religions, 303.

"Eternity, pulsings of," 107.

Eugenics, caste system the subject
matter of, 2C(4, 205.

Eur-American Civilisation, 261.

Europe, 63 160; Concert of, 236; epoch
of dismemberment in, 168; epochs
in the history of, 179; "fifty years
of, ' ' 258; ,"green-room' ' for America,

314

INDEX

267; markets of, 98; Venice the
bulwark of , 234; -ean, Civilisation,
contributions of Islam to,- 234;
history of, 38; in Hindu Service,
190; influence, 153; of to-day, 84.

Evidences, Documentary, 80; External,
147; Internal, 268.

Evolution, agelong, -68; -ary Sociology,
54.

Expansion, epoch of, 38; of Asia, 233.

Fasrie Queene,' 218^ ■ >

Fa Hien, 191 ; Chinese' biiakta, 216;
Missionary, 181; 222, 242; contem-
porary of K&lid&sa, 188.

Faith, of Indians, how named, 302; of
Japan, 262 ; Religion of,' 143 ;
Synthesis between Culture and,
265.

Faith of fapan The 21\.

Family-Reunions, in religious Cere-
monies,' Chinese and Hindu, 7.

Far, Cathay, 232; East, 39, 286; Eastern,
Nations, 265 ; Intercourse, 189.

Father, 13 ; Cult of, in India, 12 ; of
husbandry, 22 ; of war, 22 ; or
Ancestor, like the beneficent
agencies, as Nature, in China and
India, 35.

Feminine Divinities, 291.

Fenollosa, Prof., 84, 138, 166, 191, 197,
230.

Feudal, China, 45; Germany, 51; India,
51. , , , ,

Fichte, 91.

"Fifty years of Europe," 259. ■

Fifty years of New Japan, The, 203, 256,
265, 275. ' .

Finance Minister, Hindu, 41, 52^

Fire-arms, introduced into - Europe
through Mongols, 235. ■ '

Fire-god, Hindu 7; history of Chinese,
63-64; very important in China, 22;
worship, 63.

"First Emperor," Chinese 80; of
United India, 40.

"First Power of the world" Hindu,
184.

"Five Duties," 73.

" Five Leaders " Period of, in Chinese
history, 46. -

Flavian Period of Roman history, 167 ;

Folk, -China of all ages ; -Element in
Chinese and Hindu Civilization,
127; -Element in Chinese Religion,
69; -Faith in India, 123; -Festiva
of theShivites in northern Bengal,
299; -festivals in Hiuen Thsang's
time, 250; -imagination', 128 ^India
of all ages, 178, 273; -Ideas about the
Vikramadityan celebrities, 221 ;

-Religion, 70, 173; -religion in
Japan, 130; Religion .of the, 283;
-Religion the same in China and
India, 26. ■ ' 'i ■'

Folk-Element in Hindu Culture, 8;
299 ; -Songs of Southern India, 221 .

Foreign, foe, Hindu triumph over, 82
Invasions in' 'European History,
169; trade. Inspector of, 244; -ers
Intercourse of China with, 96.

Form oi\o^&, 211; of "government,'
34 ; of Religion, 33.

"Forsiike all Dharmas " in the Gtta
149.

" Forward range," 259.

Fossils, protest against, 40.

Fountain of Love, F'aith and Hope,
306. ; ' ■■

"Four Great Kings," guardians of
four quarters in India, 69.

Four routes from China to India, 250.

France Anatole, the pupil of Renan, 42,

Franciscanism, a suggested name of

Christianity, '301.
Frederick the Great, 185.
Freedom of Conscience', 264. ' '
"Free Ivove," 27'8.
Freeman the historian, 171.
French, Encyclopedists, 37 ; Scholar
Bazin, 251 ; Vedic Scholar Bern-
aigne, 23.
"Fresh fields and pastures new," 51.
Frontier of Asia, 233. ■ ■
Fudo, Jap. Shiva, 295.
Fu Hsi, Chinese Scholar, 266.
Fujiwara period of Japanese history,

248,297.
' ' Fundamental unity " of " cultural

ideals in India, 196.
Fung-Shui, Chinese Climatology, 71.
Further India, 191, 250.
Fusion, of Cultures, 100; of Hunnic and
Indian races, 200: of Races in
every country, 195.
Gablentz, Mr. 48. '

G4ndhdra, origin of Mah^yanism in,

163; Art of, 166.
Gandharva, heavenly ■ musicians in
India, 69; Japanese Kompira, 295.
Ganesh, Japanese Shoden, '296.
Gangi, Ganges, the iriver,' Hindu god-
dess, 22, 118, 242, 258, 267, 306.
Gautama Buddha, 167.
Garulas or Garudas, half man, half bird

in Indian religion, 69.
Gathas, Persian sacred teMs; 148.
Genku, a founder of Japanese Vaishnav-

ism, 298.
Genoa, connected with Asiatic cities , 235,

INDEX

315

Gensiiiii, founder of Japanese Vaishnav-
ism {Jodb Buddhism),! 298. i

Geomancers, 49. ' !

German, academic life, 45;i Classicists,
,37; states of the 18th century, 45.

Germany, modern,! 91; Young, 54.

Getty, Mrs., 287, 291, 296, 305.

Ghee, Indian term for clarified butter,
10. ■ : - , . -

Ghibellins, 91.

Gibbon, 162, 234.

Giles 1, 3, 10, 21, 24, 58, 60,i 102, 107,
110, 117., 132; 136, 156, 251. .

GU&; "Ivay of the Ivord, "- the ' most
authoritative and influential Hindu
scripture, 107; literature,' 143;
preeminence of Ktishna in, 127;
Taoistic, 109; 109, 110, 149; in
Plotinus, 160, 209, 225.-

"Glory and the freshness of a dream
The," 218.

Gnostics, 99, 156; -cism, 154, 159.

Gobharana, the first apostle of Buddhism
in China, 140. ' ,

God, 6, 15, 17, 21, 60, 107; a postulate,
35; incarnate, 145; in human form,
The King a, according to Hindus,
106; -in-man,'128; Mercy of, 144; no
mention of, 89; of Japan, as in-
carnate forms of Buddhas, 263; of
L,iterature, in China, Wen Ti, 117;
of Neo-Hinduism same as those
of Sino-Jap. Buddhism, 284; of
Northern Buddhism, 151, 282; of the
Road, in China and India, 24; of
Shintoism, 272; of War, in 'China,
117; will of, 2. ■ , ■

GodftvSri the, river in South India^ 306.

Goddesses, 283.

"God-gifted organ-voice," 229..

God-lore, 13; Anthropomorphic, 143;
varied in Asia, 302.

Gods of Northern Buddhism, 289, 291.

God-questions, a Chinese vsfork, 4.

Goethe , 91 , 108 , 228 ; the Hindu ^ Kalidasa,
185.

"Golden prime of good Haroun Al-
raschid" 232.

' ' Government of one people by another ' '
in Europe, 170.

Gowen Professor, 45, 98, 107, 120. .

Graeko-Buddhist art in China, 166, 192;
-Roman art, 161; artists, 137;
Civilisation, 98.

The Great Learning, 74.

"The Great Sage" (Maharshi), 126.

Great Sage 46, 49^ 146.

"Great Wall," 81.

Greater, Asia, the story of, 235; or
Higher Vehicle, 141 ; India, 191.

Greek, Appollo, 100 ; 'artists at Pataliputra
94; Astronomy, 223; Celebrities,
59.; city, states, 88; Culture, at
Tarsus, 'Antioch and Alexandria,
160;Designs!,'99; Empire in the East,
149; ethics, 39; invasion, 81; logic,

I 38; merchants; 95; not less super-
stitious, than Indians, 64; physics,
38; ' psychology; 39; politics, 39;
princes, 93; seal, 100; sophist, 40.

Green the historian, 180) 192, 232.

Green-rooms of the Continent ' for
Japan, 267.

Griffith Mr., 7; 23, 88, 105, 109, 113.

Grote the historian, 38.

Ground-spirit in Chinese religion, 22.

Groupings of Powers, 280.

GrunwedelMr., 119, 134, 197.

Guelphs, 91.

"Guide, philosopher, friend, "'39.

Guizot the historian, 180.

Gujrat, Jainism in, 212.

Gupta; age, Indians of, 218; Empire of
the, 184; Era, close of, 200. ■'■

Gurjara-Pratih&ra Emperors of Kanauj
in India, 100,249.

Guru, Sanskrit word, for preceptor,
39 126 256

Hackmann', 76, 78, 85, 139, 143,.180, 182.

Ha;daway Mr. 290.

Hagiology or saintlore, 126.

Hague-Conferences, 83.

Han, Dynasty, 48, 64, 110;' powerful,

168 ; gives the name to the Chinese

people, 12 ; Emperor Wu Ti, patron

■ of Confucianists and Taoists, 83 ;

sons of, 302.

Hangchow,.Sung Capital at, 244, 246.

Hanseatic towns connected with Cairo,
Baghdad and Peking, 235.

Harada Prof., 262, 271.

Hare in the Moon—the idea in Chinese
as well as Hindu literature, 4.

Harrison Frederick, 56;

Harsha, Vardhana, 152, 200, 248; Hindu
Emperor, worshipping Shiva and
Buddha, 4.

Harun Alraschid, 232.

Harvard Series, 26, 27, 29.

Havis, Sans, for Sacrificial Cake, 10.

Heart-Culture, 144; Religions of, 217.

" Heart Open," message of, 144.

Heart, of Asia, 100 ; of Europe, Asiatic
sphere of influence in; 234; of
Europfe, expulsion of foreigners
from, 169.

Heart, of India, 210;ofJainism,bZ, 134.

Heaven, 15, 17, 21, 25 ; male principle
in Chinese Metaphysics, 30; his son
11.. '

316

INDKX

Hegelian, 32 ; Synthesis in Kalidasan
ideals, 226.

Hellenes, 33, 92; city-states, 55; in-
fluence powerless, 156; race, 38;
-isation of India, 198; -istic; art in
Bactria, 164 ; as contrasted with
Hellenic, 38 ; Embassy at Hindu
capital, 85; influence, 158-59; king-
dom, 163; period, 152; Syria, 81.

Henotheistic, 33, 276.

Heptarchy in England, 80.

Heraclitean, i. e. embodying the Doctrine
of Change, 29.

Herb- worship in Vedic Religion, 27.

Hermetic books of Egypt, 154.

" Hero " in Carlyle's language, 125.

Herodotus, the Chinese, 48.

Heroified fathers like the Energies of
Nature, 35.

Hia Futchi, Keeper of temple, 63.

"Higher," Criticism, 41; Intelligences,
21; "Vehicle" 141.

Him&layas, 81, 291; crossed by Hindus-
than, 232.

Hinaydnism, Lesser or Lower Vehicle,
141, 142, 147, 281.

Hindu, as synonym for Asian, 232;
Bushido or Chivalry, 87 ; Chou-li,
the Artha-Sistra, 52 ; Culture, 67 ;
Culture, best expression of, 228 ;
Development, Jainism and Bud-
dhism phases of, 67;genius, elasticity
and adaptability of ,64;godpresentat
Mahavira's initiation, 68 ; in Kd-
lidasan literature 225; Li-king, 52;
Literature, Positivism in, 73; Men-
tality, 68; Messiah, 114; Moses,
Manu the Sociologist, 87;Movement
in China, 172 ; not the name of a
religion, 302; Pantheon, 67; Pauranic
and Tantric, 285; philosopher, 40 ;
Researches compared with Alex-
andrian, 104; Rishis very martial,
36; Saviour, 79; Scholar, 66;
Shu-King, 52 ; So--called, 291, 300 ;
Sociologist Manu, 54; Taoism, 30;
texts, 27; Vidy&s or Sciences, thirty
two in number, 102; Vyasa, 50; Yi-
King, 52; -isation, of Asia, 255; of
Tartars, 199; -ising Mahometans,
202.

Hindu-Islamic, 202 ; Intercourse, 236.

Hinduism, 4; of the Buddha-cult,
Vishnu-cult, Shiva-cult, etc., 151,
164, 283 ; same as Mahayanism
(Buddhism), 281-306: the name
ambiguous, 301-3 ; the name given
to Indian religion by foreigners,
14.

Hindusthan 2, 41, 50, 51, 68, 95, 184;

the heart of "Concert of Asia,?'
245 ;. School of Asia, 229.

Hirth, 15, 27, 46, 47, 59, 80, 97, 101,
242, 244.

Historical, atlas of the world, 233;
Method, 305 ; Method of Criticism,
55; -ico-Comparative Method in
Sociology, 65, 282.

History, Influence of Geography on,
72; Military, of India, 204; of
Asia, 230 ; of Bengal, 249 ; of Bud-
dhism(See 'Buddhism' or 'Chinese')
in China, 180; of Castes in India,
203 ; of the English People, 232; of
Europe, 39; Indian, epochs in, 179;
of the Mongols, 235; of Titsang
in China, 284 ; of warfare, 206.

Historic China, 21.

Historical Geography of Europe 171.

History, of Bengal, 200 ; of Bengali
Literature 298; of China (Qovien),
45; of China (Hirth), 101; of
Chinese Literature, 110, 251 ; oj
Civilisation, 72 ; of England, 215;
of the English People 193 ; of
European Thought, 45 ; of Fine
Art in India and Ceylon, 133, 165;
of Greece, 38; of the Han Dynasty ,
49 ; of Hindu Chemistry, 249 ; of
India, 82, 94; of Indian Shipping,
43, 197, 241, 245; of the Mongols,
199; of Philosophy , 160; of Political
Theories, 54; of the Saracens, 234.

Hiuen Ming, Chinese Water-deity, 116.

Hiuen Thsang, 2, 200 231, 236, 240,
286, 287, 298, 292, 306 ; at Allaha-
bad, 250 r patron of, 246; Sees
Jaina Monks, 212 ; State-guest of
the Hindus, 248 ; takes the Central
Asian route to India, 192.

Ho, the spirit of, 21.

' ' Hocus pocus ' ' Taoistic, 96.

Hogarth Mr., 153.

' ' Holiness by means of Asceticism and
Retirement" in Religion im China
30. • ,

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 257.

"Holy," "Alliance" real, 182; Grail,
Quest of, 35 ; Roman Empire, 234 ;
Wars against Islam, 233.

Homeric, Epics, 13; era, 32.

Honan, East 63; -fu; the Chinese
Capital where Buddhism was first
introduced, 99, 140, 250; South,
63.

Hope, Religion of, 143.

Hopeh River-god Chinese, 116.

Horde Golden, the Mongols so-called,
235.

Horiyuji in Japan, 3.

INDEX

317

House, of Han, 80; of RagHu, the
achievements of, 225.

Ho-worth, 198, 234.

Hsieh Ho, Chinese art-critic, 291.

Huang Shanku, Chinese art-critic, 255.

Human Sacrifice, prohibited among the
Hindus in the Sdtapatha Br&hmana
10 ; in China, 10.

Hume, 37.

Humility, in the Bible, "virtue of a
necessity," 55.

Hun, 97, 162, 199; Chieftain, worshipper
of Buddha-image, 136 ; in India,
ancestors of Rajputs, 196; dame,
178; defeated by Skandagupta, 214.

Husbandry-god in China, 22.

Huxley, Confucius not agnostic like, 65.

Hwangho, the river, 258, 267, 306.

Hwanti, mythical Chinese Emperor, 30.

Hwei-luh, goddess, Chinese fire-deity,
63, 116.

Hymn about the One Creator of All,
19; to Agni, Fire-god, 7; to barley,
27; Buddhist, 294; to the Goddess,
304; to herb, 27; to Morning, 23;
to Parjanya Cloud-god, 24; to Pitris
(ancestors), 12; to Varuna the chief
god, 18; to Vishnu in Raghu-vamsa,
215.

Hypothesis, Verification of, C04.

" lam the Way, the Life, the Truth,"
149.

"lam Vishnu, lam Brahma, lam
Shiva," 216.

Ibsenism in Europe and America, 277

Icon, 36; -ising, 131; -ography, 141;
Indo-Tartar, 167; Neo-Hindu, 289.

Ideas, Influence of Place and Race
on, 258.

Ideals, Highest, 128; 258 ; of the Hindus
in Kalidasan literature, 225;
Ideals of the East, The, 268, 301.

Idealism, 91, 102, 143: of the Chinese
Missionary Fa Hien, 181; of the
Hindu widow, 252.

Idola or Superstition, 41, 64.

Idolatry, Confucian, 129; System of,
128; Idol-worship, human and
universal, 131; in the West, 129.

Idylls from the Sanskrit, 185.

Iliad, 32.

Image, 36; golden, of Buddha in China,
136; in Jainism, 122; of Buddha,
first, in China, 130; of Buddha
not yet made, 135; of Confucius,
130; of Vishnu, erected by Helio-
doros son of Dion, 135; oldest, of
. Buddha in Ceylon, 136; worship,
in China indigenous, 130; wor-
ship, age of, not yet come, 139.

Imagination, Chinese, 139; of closet
philosophers, 277; of Hindu poet
Kalidasa 185; of Whitman, 259.

"Immovable East" alleged, 64.

"Impassioned speech," 113.

Imperial, Academy of Sciences, Petro-
grad, 244; ancestors, 89; capital, 47
Gazetteer of India, 52, 96, 190
Head at Delhi, 202; -ism, 4,
apotheosis of , 85 ; Chinese later than
Hindu, 82; Vikramadityan , 208; -ist
Chinese, 84; Hindu, 189; organisa-
tion, 81.

Incarnate, forms of Buddhas, Japanese
gods as, 263; -ation. Christian
doctrine of, 146.

Inconsistencies in Asia, 265.

India, "Greater," 191; greater than
Sikyasimha, 56 ; of the Guptas, 217 ;
"-sense," 189; United, 40.

Indian, akin to Confucianist in religion,
61; Empire, boundaries of, in
Maurya times, 81; Emperor 89;
Families in Chinese capital, 250;
influence, 107; Mind, 53; Mints of
thought, 232; Missionising, char-
acteristic of , 256; Napoleon, 81, 185,
203, ocean, 241; scholar, 234;
Shintoism, 12; thought, influence
of, in China, not yet, 141 ; Tradition;
30; -isation of China, 252; -ised
Scythian or Tartar Settlements,
164; -ising of the Mongolian Mind,
301; -ism, reservoir of, for Japan,
246, 254; comes to stay in China,
182; of Kfilidasa's age, 188; em-
bodiment of, 224; in China, 172;
described by Kalidasa, 226.

Indian, Antiquary, 197; Studies, 72;
Study of Love and Death, An, 252.
Theism, 20, 67.

"Individuality," 262.

Indo, -Aryan Intellectuality, 33; -Aryan
lore, 277; -Aryan medicine, Che-
mistry, etc., 50; -Aryan race-genius,
273; -China, 246: -Chinese Civih-
sation, history of, 161; -Chinese
Climatology mediaeval, 72; -Chinese
Culture, 3; -Chinese Culture, Japan
an appendix to, 262; -Chinese
intercourse, 191; -Chinese Inter-
course not proven before 3rd Cent.
B.C., 4, 26; -Chinese Scholarship,
159; -Chinese world a single unit
in Hiuen Thsang's time, 240;
-Chinese world, 128; -Greek
Matrimonial relations, 198 -Iranian
Race-consciousness cast in the same
mould as Chinese, 5; -Japanese
Intercourse, 245; -Mongol inter-

318

INDEX

course, 236; -Persian Embassies in

AJahta paintings, 249; -Roman

Intercourse, 190; -Saracfenic, 202;

-Scythians or Yue-chi, 98, 151. ■
Indologistsi 83; as necrologists, 55;

-logy I 284; should be studied by

Sinologues 26.
Indono Damashii, Japanese phrase

coined for" The Spirit of Hindu-
, sthan," 90; formula of ,- 226.
Indra, a Vedic deitj^, subordinate to

Varuna, 19, 27, 69; disappearance

of, 283; visits Buddha, 135.
Inductive Method, 93.
Indus, the river, 82, 96, 258, 267, 306.
" Industrial Revolution," 224, 258.
"Infallibility," Doctrine of, 83, 265.
Inferior race, Megasthenes belonged

to an, 85.
Infinite, 107, 128; in the Finite, 229.
Influence, of Geography on History, 72;

of .warfare on. social and economic

life, 204.
Infirmity of Man, 144.
Inquisition, 89. -
"Inspired prophets" of India, called

Rishis in Vedic literature, 13.
"Institutes 'of the period Yengi," 268.
Intercourse, between China and; western

countries, 165; between Japan and

China, 268; Hindu, with Persians,

94.
International, Conferences of Scientists,

99; Debit and Credit, 159; Ivegists

of Hindu Indiaj' 88; view-point,

99.
Inter-racial, 192-207; Marriages, 93;

Problems due to' Western miscon-
ceptions about the East, 65.
Introduction to the History of England,

261.
Invention, of deities 145; by Chinese

and Hindus, 62, 119.
Iranians,' 5, 154, 196; -isation of India, 197.
Irenaeus, collector of Bible-lore, 156.
Islam, 184; Contributions of , to Europe,

234;inChina,243;-isingHindus,202;

-ite , carriers of oriental message to

Europe, 232; Invasions, 201.
Island Empire (Japan), museum of

Indo-Chinese world, 246.
Isles of Greece, 32.
Ism, 74,. 79, 84, 122^ 303; Indian, all

modern, really Buddhist, 196.
Israel, 114; 146.
Italy, 43.

I-tsing, 241, 243, 286.
Jackson Prof. , . 160.
Jagaddhatrl, Hindu goddess Of Energy,

293.

Jahangir, Emperor, 202.

Jaina, 52, 66, 104, ,263';. bas-reliefs in
Orissa, 136; Canon 209; Chan-
dragupta a (?), 85; literature, 112;
VaiShnavising,' 216; -ism, 41, 84,
122 ; like Shaivism and Vaishnavism,
211 ; theistic, 67.

James II of England, 89. •

Japan, 3, 191 ; born, 266 ; Chinese influence
on, '268; entered upon the scene,
244 ; instructed by Korean Scholar,
268; Pre-Buddhist, 275; the Asoka
of, 89 ; -ese, 230 ; alphabet influenced

■ by Hindu , 250 ; art, 248 ; Assimilation ,
193;i Buddhism similar to modern
Hinduism, 145, 256, 295 ; Confucian-
ist, 264; .gods, incarnate, forms of
the Buddhas, 263; history, periods
of, 247; housewife's superstitions,
274 ; Iconography ultimately traced
to Indo-Tartar sources,. 167; Jizos,
285; Literature, earliest records,
12, 267.; Poetry, 100; Scholar, 31;
scholars as pupils of. Chinese Doc-
tors, 232; scholar on Neo-Confucian-
ism, 254; Shinto Mythology, 272;

' Shiva, Kail, SaraswatI, L,akshmi,
. etc. , 295 ; Tara> 292 ; Vaishnavism,
297.
T&takas, Birth-stories in Pali, 115, 126;

■ AvatdraAegend in; 143, 147; on
stiipas, 155, 172.

Java, 242; Colonised by Hindus, 191.

Jerusalem, 42, 43, 115. ■

Jesus, 43(' 48; .Age. of, ,49; as an

Avatara, 146; teachings anti-

dotneStic and anti-social, 79; the

historic, 53;. the .man, 42.
Jew, l93; in relation to Jesus, 42; in

South India, 190; Saul, of Tarsus,

160; -ish Wars, 42. i :
Jewel-Amulets, 29.. ,
Jihads, .Holy Wars, 233- .
Jivaka-chintamani, Jaina work in

Tamil, 212.
Jizo, god of Jap I Buddhism, 285; -ists,

303: ' . • '"

Jizya-tax, Reimposition of, in India, 89.
Jodo sect of Japanese Buddhism really

Vaishnava, 298, 300. >
Johnson Dr. , 37.
Johnston, 328, 157, .179, 266.
Jo^ephus, 42. . .i

Jowrnal, 'Asiatigue, .The, ^1; of the

Asiatic .Society of Bengal 298; oj

the North China 'Branch of the

Royal Asiatic. Society, . 26 of the
.Peking Oriental. Society s 110, 253;

■of Royal Asiatic Society (London),

192, 287,- 298. ...

INDEX

319

Judceas Procurator, 42.

Judaised Christianity, 258; -ism, 148,
152.

fus gintiuin, 40i ' '

Kabir, 202.

Kabul (Cophene) , 238-39.

Kakemonos, Chinese and Japanese
paintings, 133.

Kal&s, 222, 252; Sankrit for prattical
arts, sixty-four in number, 102.

Kali, Hindu goddess of Terror, '266,
293, 295; Japanese, Kariteimo,' 295.

Kali the Mother, 249, 293.

Kalidasa,Conteniporaryof Fa Hien,188 ;
date , 222 ; epiq A'awara- jawzMaz)aw ,
213; "God-gifted organ-Voice" of
the Orient, 229; greatest poet of
India, 185; harbinger of Spring,
230; poetry, World of, \%'i\Raghu-
vamsain, 185; Vikramadityan, 208;
-an Ideals, 225 ; literature, 209, 228.

Kamakura, 3; Period, Japanese Con-
fucianism of ,.248,' 264.

Kama-sutra, Sesxial science in Sanskrit,
102.

Kami, '267, 272; ancient ^ods of Shinto-
ism, 12; Japanese for gods, 263;
defined by Motoori,270;-cnlt similar
to Vedic and' pre-CoiifUcian, 273;
-Myths, 269: -Professor Japanese,
265. •

Kanauj, capital of Hindu' Empire, 249.

Kanishka, Hindu Emperor 163; date,
tentative, 142 ;' religious policy, 151.

Kantian j 37. ■ i

Kariteimo, Japanese Kali, 295.

Kartika, the Warrior-god of India,
213, 301; Japanese Taigensui, 295.

Kasiapa Matanga, the first Apostle of
Biiddhism in China, 140.

Kautilya; 9, 84, 86; the Hindu Finance
Minister, 41/ '52;' Machiavellian,
226.

Kavi-kankana'Chandi, 225. '

Kavyam rasatmakam. vdkyam., Hindu

' ' theory of Poetry, Wordsworthian,
113.

Kharoshti script, 192.'

Khotan, 139, 164, 192.

Kichijoten, Japanese Laksfami,' goddess
• of fortune, 295.

"Kingdom of god is within you," The,
55, 91, 144.'

KipHng, 85, 226.

Kitchen-god Chinese; 63.

Kobo Daishi, Saint, painter of twelve
Japanese gods, 3, 247, 263, 297, 306.

Kojiki, 268, 271; earliest' Japanese
record, 12.

Kojikiden by Motoori, 270.

Kongosatta, Japanese for Vajrasatta,289,

KSrea, 188, '193j' 257; -an, 167; Bud-
dhism, 268; Buddhism similar to
modern Hiriduism, 145; scholar as
teachfer of 'Japan, 268.

Krishna, 266; god, pre-eminence of,

in the Gftdi, 127; Gupta Emperors'

faith in; 214; the Hindu Saviour,

149 ; the lengthy oration of, in the

■ GUa, 150; -cult, 119.

Kshatriya, 87; term, 205; Warrior-
caste, 86;-ziw«i.e. Hindu Militarism
(Bushido) or Chivalry,' 87; in-
fluenced by meditation, 255.

Ku Hung-Ming, Mr., 75.

Kuantzi, Chinese Statistician,' 47.

Kucha, in Central Asia, 166, 192.

Kumaragupta I, Hind-u Emperor, 222.

Kumaraji-fra, Indian Missionary, 181,
191; originally a man of India,
after-wards of K&rahar, 238; the
nation of; 188.

Kumar a-sambhavajn (The Birth of
Kumara or War-I/ord), an Epic by
Kahdasa, 213.

KumS Prof., 263, 275.

Kuo-Tohsu, Chinese art-critic, 254.

Kurrul, Tamil work, 212, 225. '

KurukShetrd) the greatest battlefield
in Hindu tradition, 110.

Kushan; 96, 189, 199; coinage, Per-
sianising of, 198.

Ktivera, Hindu god of wealth, 273;
Japanese Vishamon, 297; King of
Yakshas,"in Sculpture, 134.

Kwang Shentsze, Doctor of Taoism, 31.

Kwai Yuen Catalogue, 192.

Kwanyin, god of Chinese Buddhism
284; the god of Mercy, 182;
Jap. K-wannon, 298.

Kwo Yii, testifying tostar-'worship, 62.

Kyoto period, 305; Buddhism, 263;
Japanese Confucianist ofj 264; of
Japanese history, '247.

Lacouperie, 22, 63; 96, 116,' 130.

Laisserfaire or "Let alone" 83, 279.

Ivakshmi, Hindu goddess, 289 ; Japanese
Kichijoten, 295. '

Lamb Charles, the essayist, 35.

Land, of Buddha; 250; of Confucius, 4,
145; of the Kami, 282; of IheNile,
32; of the Rising Sun; 12, 188,
266; of Sakya,'4, 182; of Seven
Rivers, India, 36; of Shinto-cult 4;
of the Tigris, 232; of Western
Barbarians, referring to India, 3;
oiZa.t^h.tistra.',155 -y'^LcCndof Exile,
The," Poem on, by Yuan, 111;
-rcftite, Central'Asian, 192.

Lao-tsze, 41, 46, 58, 66, 97, 102; deified,

320

INDEX

173-4; flourishes equally with Con-
fucius, 121 ; founder of Taoisnj, 26,
41 ; Hinduised rhapsody to, 253 ; in
posterity's eyes, 125; interviewed
by Confucius, 57, 67; Keeper of
archives, 47; opinions contained
in Tao-te-chingy 109; -ism, 172;
Lao-Tzu by Watters, 173.

Laufer Dr., 255, 291.

Laws, 105; of Manu, the Hind\i
Sociologist, 87.

Law Narendra Mr., 84, 202.

"Lavinian shores" 286.

Leaves from Chinese Scrap-book, 25.

Legends, Celtic, 13; Taoist, 29.

"Legal fiction" 205.

"Legalism" repudiated by Jesus, 144.

Legge, Dr., 6, 11, 15, 21, 44, 74, 125,
130, 181.

Leibnitz, 223.

Le Roman de la Rose, 220.

"Let knowledge grow from more to
more," 217.

Levi Sylvain, Dr.., 166.

Liang Dynasty, 239.

Liau-Yang, Chinese Yos^a, 173.

Liberty, by J. S. Mill, 262.

Life, crucible of, 265; Religion a
handmaid of, 35; Hindu Science of
(called Ayurveda), 52.

"Light that never was on sea or land,"
228.

Llki, ("Book of Rites,") a Chinese
Classic, 36.

Lingam (phallus), worship of, in India,
119.

Lingli, Chinese King, 141.

Li Sao (Falling into Trouble), a poem
by Chu Yuan, 111.

List Frederick, 91.

Literary Criticism, Method of, 228.

Literati Confucian, 27, 83, 99, 110.

"Live and let live," 262.

Lives by Plutarch, 59; of the Poets, 37.

Lloyd, 94, 95, 147, 154.

Loo (Lu), 10; the librarian-sage of,
Confucius, 63, 92, 175.

"Lords of the lithosphere" Hindus as,
in Kalidasan literature, 225.

Lore, Biblical, 154: Indo-Aryan, 277;
Taoist, 49; Upanishadic, i.e. the
abstruse portions of Vedas, 29.

Louis XIV of France, 88.

Love, and Romanticism, Religion of,
282; "-charm" in Rigveda, 27;
Doctrine of, in Asia, 265; faith and
hope. Fountain of, 306 ; Religion of,
143, 144, 182, 297; unifying phy-
siology of, 217 ;Universal,in Chinese
philosophy, lOl ; -ing personal god.

210; "Lover, the lunatic and the
poet," the, 128.

Loyang, the ancient name of the
Chinese capital now called Honau-
fu, 140, 141, 250.

Lute of Jade, 111.

Macaulay, 170, 215.

Maccabees, 152.

Macdonell and Keith, 29.

Macedonia, 94, 95; Alexander, 92.

Machiavelli, the Indian, 41; -ism of
Kautilya the Hindu statesman, 91,
226.

Macnicol, Mr., 20, 31, 67.

Madagascar, 191.

Magadha state, 80, 82, 287, 288.

Magga, Pi^li for "way," 90.

Magi, Iranian Sages, 154.

Mahabharata; 50, 119, 127, 209; -India,
178.

Mahaffy Professor, 38, 82.

Mahanirvana Tantra, 304.

Mahasamaya, (Great Concourse), a
Buddhist poem, 69.

Mahavira 41, 66, 72, 76, 105; Initia-
tion, 67; Predecessors and disciples
in the Heart of Jainism, 53.

Mahayanic, Cult, 283 ; iconography, 289;
school older than Christianity, 156;
-ism as a "cognate," 151; 142, 177,
281; codified, 163; (Greater or
Higher Vehicle), 141; -ist, 217;
Doctor of Tantric philosophy, 173.

Mahomet, followers of, 231 -an Burope,
179; Invasions, 200; power, Hindu
reaction against, 203.

Maitreva, god in Chinese Buddhism, •
284.

"Make thy denominator Zero," 108.

Making of an .<4t'aWra, 128; The Making
of the New Testament, 146, 155.

Man, Infirmity of, 144.

Mandarin, 46.

Man gala Sutta, Pali Buddhist work,
76.

Manikka Vachakar, the great Tamil
Shaiva Saint, 213.

Man Singh, Hindu viceroy, 202.

Manu, 52, 87, 105, 186, 224; an eugenist
in his treatment of caste-questions,
204; -cycle, statesmen of, 106;
Hindu sociologist recommended by
Nietzsche, 54 ; school of Internation-
al Legists, 88.

The Many, Cult of, 279; one in the, 229.

Mardthas, Hindu Empire of, 203; race,
195.

Marco Polo, 227, 244.

Marga, Sanskrit for "way," 303.

Mariolatry, 155.

INDEX

321

Maritime Activity, Chinese, 242.

Markgrafate, the jurisdiction of a
border-chief, 44, 51.

Marriage of, Asia with Europe, 101;
Hindu Monarch with Greek prin-
cess, 93.

Martin I^uthers of India, 202.

Massacre of Confucian pedantocrats, 41.

Matthew Arnold, 37, 81, 85.

Maurya, age opened up, 112; Chandra
gupta Emperor, 40; Emperor, 52;
Empire, first in time, 94, 161, 184;
India, Persian influence on, 197.

"Maxmuller of the day," Hiuen
Thsang, 240.

Mecca, 48.

Mediaeval, Asia, International commerce
in, 244; Europe, 44, 56, 259;
Hinduism, 283; India, greatest
thinkers of, 20.'^; -isms of the
modern West, 65.

Mediterranean Sea, an Asiatic lake,
2.33.

Megasthenes, 1, 227; Head of the
Hellenistic Embassy at Hindu
Capital, 85.

Meiji, Jap. for "Enlightenment," 89.

Mencius, 2, 140; the second founder of
Confucianism, 102.

Mentality, Asiatic, 265; Chinese, no
division possible, 121; Chinese and
Hindu, 107; Classical Chinese, 68;
Common to Pre-Buddhist India
Pre-Buddhist China and Pre-Bud-
dhist Japan, 275 ; common to Hindu
and Chinese in Folk-Religion, 26;
Hindu, 68.

"Merrie England," 218.

Merz, the historian, 45.

Mesopotamian influence upon Chinese
and Hindu art, 197.

Messiah, Advent oif, Hindu; Jaina, 126;
-nic Conception, 114; Kingdom, 149.

Method, Comparative-historical and in-
ductive, 41, 93; Conventional, of
interpreting Asia, 56; Historico-
Comparative, 55, 65, 282; Philo-
sophical, 281 ; Socratic, of Confucius,
40, 59; of Investigation, 304; of
Wterary Criticism, 228; -ology, 33.

Metal mirrors, 99.

Michi, Japanese for "Way," 90, 276,
278, 303.

Middle Ages, expansion of Asia in the,
230, 233.

"Middle Kingdom, ' ' 46, 49, 245 ; China,
. so called, 4, 36.

Mid-India, a man of, in China, 238.

Mihira Bhoja, an Empire-Builder in
India, 200, 249.

Mihists, adherents of Moti the Chinese
philosopher of Universal love, 101.

Milieu, 55, 151, 162.

Mill John Stuart, 262; Confucius not
an agnostic like, 65.

Milton's, Paradise Lost, 56; poetry, -
208.

Mind, and Art of KalidSsa, 229; Asiatic,
276.

Ming Dj-nasty, 101.

Mingti, dream, 237; Han Emperor
introduces Buddhism, 138.

Mint of thought, Asian, in India, 232.

Misery, Cessation of, 79.

Missionaries, Christian, 227; Indian
and Chinese, 181; Indian in China,
1.38; -ising, Asokan 95, 1.38, 160;
Buddhistic, not the sole unifying
factorin Asia, 279; history of Hindu,
141, 180-183, 189, 218, 2.32, 237-240,
245, 250-54; Indian, Characteristics
of, 255.

Mithra, 146; -ism, 147, 153.

Mlechchha, Sans, for foreigner, 81 , 190,
301 ; as teachers of Hindus, 223.

Mobility of the population in India, 205.

Modern, Asia, Asoka of, 89; Europe,
Pessimism in, 54; Hinduism, Cults
of, 145; Hinduism, Cults of,
Buddhism in, 287; Religions, Dei-
ties in, history of, 175; West,
erroneous view of, regarding the
East, 64; Modern, Buddhism, 299;
Review, The, 289.

Moghul Monarchy, 202.

Moksha, Mukti, Sanskrit for Salvation,
53, 31, 228.

Monarchies Ancient, 161, 184.

Mongol, 81; influence on European
Civilisation , 235 ; Masters of Russia,
233; -ia, 281, 293; -ian Mind,
Indianising of, 301.

Monism, 278; in Pluralism, .363; -istic.
Abstractions of Metaphysics, 278;
Conception in Ancient Chinese and
Hindu Metaphysics, 30.

Monotheism, a psychological absurdity,
277; so-called, 276; -istslo; "-istic
gods are jealous gods," 279.

Montesquieu, 72.

Mookerji Prof., 43, 191, 245, 271.

Moon, Eclipse in Chinese Religion, 22;
Hare sitting in, 4.

Morality, military in India, 86-7 ; Inter-
national, in India, 88.

Moscow, Princes of, 233.

Moses, 43; of India, Manu the Law-
giver, 87.

Moslem residents in -Chinese ports, 243,

Mother, Earth, worship of, in China,

322

INDEX

117; Sasthi, Hindu goddess, 301;

Sitala, Hindu goddess, 301.
Moti, the Chinese philosopher of

Universal love, 101, 102.
Motoori's definition of Kdmi, 270.
Moulton, 148, 153.

MountTai,worshipof, in China, 117, 140.
Mountains, Spirit of, in India, 69.
Mudra, attitude of image, 290, 292.
Museum of Indo-Chinese world, Japan,

246.
Music, art of, in religion, 132.
Mutshuito the Great, 89.
Mutze the Chinese philosopher, 49.
"My Kingdom is not of this world, ' ' 54.
Mysticism, in India and China, 30; of

Gita, 150; Taoistic, 58, 108.
Myth-creating instinct of the Chinese,

140; Myths of the Hindus and

Buddhists, The, 293.
Mythology, Chinese, 116; Greek 99;

Hindu, 120; Japanese Shinto, 272;

of Romanticism 138; of the East,

361 ; Sino- Japanese Buddhistic, 284 ;

Vedic, 68.
Nagarjuna, 143, 156, 173, 298.
Naga, Serpent-god in India, 69; the

Hindu prototype of Chinese

Dragon, 27.
Naladiyar, Jaina work, in Tamil, 212.
Nanak, 202.
Nanjio Buniyu, 240.
Nanking, Sung Capital at, 191, 192, 246.
Napoleons, Chinese, 81, 246; Indian, 81;

of Asia, and Europe, 169; Tamil,

203; -ic haste of Saracens, 231; -ism,
. 91.
Nara period, of Japanese history, 3,

232, 247, 267, 268, 305; Buddhism

in, 263.
Narmada the, a river- in South India,'

306.
Nationalism, Hindu, Kalidasa embodi-
ment of, 229; Epoch of, 81; -ist,

Asoka, 88; School of Indian art,

293.
Nature, 15, 21; -Cult, 13, 62, 69; -Deities

-Forces, 60; -Forces, Worshipper of,

Chandragupta a, 77; in Japan, 271;

-Myths, 22; -Worshippers, 34;

-al Order, 13; "Natural Superna-

turalism" of Carlyle, 110; -ism in

Japan, 272.
Nava-ratna Sans, for Nine gems, 218.
Navy, Hindu, in Southern India, 250.
Nazarenes, 154; -eth, 43, 53.
Necessity, philosophical, Asiatic Unity,

a, 279; physiological. Pluralism a,

277; psychological, Buddhism in

China a, 138.

Neo, -Buddhism, 3;-Confucianism, 3, 254;
-Hindu gods in Japan painted by
Kobo Daishi, 297; -Hindus really
Buddhists, 283; -Hinduism 281;
-Platonism, 159; -Platonist, the
greatest, Plotinus, 160; -Taoism, 3.

Nepal, 51.

Never-ending Wrong, The, a Chinese
poem, 252.

New, Deities invented in China, 62-3;
Deities in China and India, 118;
Englanders of the East coast, 260;
India, 217; Japan, 286; Learning,
38; Worlders of the United States,
192; Zealand, 193; New Calendar
of Great Men, 126 ; New Testament
of Higher Buddhism, 142.

Newton, 223.

Nicobar Islands, 243.

Nidanas or connecting links between
Ignorance and Birth, 177.

Nietzsche, recommends Hindu Sociolo-
gist Manu, 54; -ean Energist,
Vivekananda, 126; -ism of Chinese
Imperialist, 84.

Nihongi, The, 12, 268, 269, 271.

Nihon-ko-ki about Indian origin of
cotton in Japan, 245.

Nile, The, 32.

"Nine," i.e. the nine Muses, 37; Gems
or Celebrities in India, 218.

Nippon, Dai, 89, 267; Syntheticism in,
262.

Nirvana, 76, 79, 141, 264-; -ism, 41, 82,
84, 85, 142, 177, 281; as an Indian
' ' cognate , " 151 ; ( annihilation )
political, 54; under Non- Aryan
sphere of influence, 163; -ists, 99;
Sakyasimha, 226; Quellers of
Misery, 53; India, 178; -istic, 77;
Suttas, 209.

Ntti, or Rule of life, 86; -Sastras, Hindu
treatises on Economics, Politics
and Sociology, 52.

Nivedita Sister, 252, 293 301.

Non; -aggressive, Asiatics, 56; -Aryan
influences in ISengal , 195 ; -religious,
Chinese people wrongly described
as, 60; -Resistance, 53; -Resistance
is the Creed of all our Rishis, 55.

Norito, Japanese prayers 268.

Novum Organum, 40, 223.

North India, a man of, in China, 239.

Northern, Buddhism, 283; Liang Dy-
nasty, 238; Sung Period, 254.

Northwestern India, 96, 199.

Nucleuses of Race-mixture, 93.

Occident, 169; -al Colleagues, 224.

Ocean, of love, Sanskrit literature an,
210; of Mahayanist belief, 157.

mcfix

323

" Odes of the Tetnple and the Altar"
in the She-King, 10.

Odyssey, 32.

Official Guide to Eastern Asia, 254.
■Okakura Kakasu Mr., 250, 268, 295.

Okuma Count, 257.

Old, Idolas, 41; life, landmarks of,
68; order, 41, 259; system, 40;
Testaitient-gods, William of Orange
an avatara of, 215; world, 193.

One, The, 128, 278; and the Many, Sj-s-
thesis between, 279; Creator of All,
19;in the Man}', 229; "Musicas before
but vaster, ' ' 217; Supreme Being, in
Chinese Religion, 20.

Order, Eternal, 62; of God, 60; or
corporate bodies, 52; Sakyan, 91;
Statical principle of, 206.

" Open," "Heart," message of, in Bud-
dhism, 149; Questions, 65.

" Opening up of China," so-called, 62.

■Oppert Gustav, 86.

Opus Majus, 22.S.

Organon or Instrument, 65.

Orient, 39, 169; Culture of the, not yet
studied with reference to the his-
toric perspective, 56; False idea,
about, of the Westerns, 64; "God-
gifted organ voice" of, Kalidasa as
229; heart and brain of, India, :32;
pessimistic, 56; -al impact, 159;
Physical Science, 223; Sun, atmos-
phere, immorality, etc., 226.
-isation, defence of Europe against,
233 ; -ised Christianitj-, 258 ; -ists,
259.

Orissa, 203, 299; Jainism in, 122;
bas-reliefs in, 136.

" Ormus, wealth of " 226.

Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, The, 221, 253,
255, 284, 290.

Ottoman Islam Empire, 233.

Oxford Universitv, origin of, traced to
the Orient, 2.T2.

Painting, artof, in religion. 132 ;Chinese,
Canons of, 291 ; Painting in the
Far East, 98.

Pala Dvnastv, Hindu Emperors, 249;
of Bengal, 200.

Palestine, 42, 95, 96.

Pali literature, 112; old Indian dialect,
53.

Palit Haridas, Indian Folklorist, 299,
305.

Pan-Christian alliances against Islam,

233.
Pajuha-tantra, Sanskrit work, 232.

Panini, 52; -Cycle, linguists, grammar-
ians, and logicians, 51, 99.

Panku, Chinese historian, 48.

Pantheism in China and India, 30;
-istic, 33, 276.

Pantheon, 68; Hindu, 67; Mahayana,
286; Neo-Hindu, 281.

Papac}-, Taoist, 173; -al doctrine, 83.

Paracelsus, 39.

Paradise Lost, 56, 228.

Paradise of the west, Chinese, Fable
regarding, 99.

Parallelisin, between China and India
in political history, SI; in Chinese
and Hindu Socio-religious life, 25,
30; in the world of letters, 3; in
world's religious evolution, 159.

PargiterMr., 209.

Parishats, Sanskrit for academies, 50,
104.

Parjanya, Cloud-god in Vedic Religion,
24.

Parker, 98, 154.

Parswanatha, the very first apostle of
Jainism, 178.

Parthia, 164; -ian, 98; language, 159.

Pan'a, parts of Jaina literature, 105.

Pataliputra, (modern Patna), 51, 83,
85, 99; 230, Capital of Hindu
Emperors, S2; Guptas at, 208; Hel-
lenistic I/egation-quarter at, 198;
Jaina Council at, 105 ; Social life at,
94.

Path, 275; Eightfold, 72, 7(i; -finders,
53; -God iu Chinese religion, 22.

Patriarchs, of Early Taoism, 30; of
Indian Buddhism, 1S3.

Pauline doctrine of Incarnation, 146.

Pax Britannica, 206.

"Peace," "and goodwill to all man-
kind," 279; -apostles, ^\^; Peaceful
Old Age, 107.

Pedants, Confucian, not whole China,
112; Hidebound, Hindu Emperors
not, 84; -tocrats, Confucian, 40.

Peep into the Earlv History of India,
218.

Peking, connected with Hanseatic
towns, 235; Tartar capital near,
246.

"Perfect Sage," 48, 83.

Perfection, Types of, 128,

Periclean demagogues, 38.

" Period of gestation" 125.

Periplus of the Erylhi a;an Sea, The, 190.

Permanent, Way, 62; truth, 275.

Persia, 5; Sassanian, 231; storm and
stress in, 39; Zoroastrianised, 153 ;
-ian, Intercourse with China,
96: language, through which
Hindu work passes as ^sop's
Padles, 232; Monarchy, 161, 184;
title of Satrap in India 197;

324

INDEX

' 'wise men, ' ' 155 ; -isation of India,

197.
Personifications in Japan weak, 273.
Pessimism, 56, 252; advocated in the

Bible, 54; so-called, of the Hindus,

226.
Pestalozzi, 91.
Peter the Great, 185.
Pharaohs, age of, 259.
Philip, Alexander's father, 92; II. of

Spain, 88.
Philosophical, Method, 281, 304; neces-
sity , Asiatic unity a, 279 : -er-Saints,

306; -V of Energism, objective, in

India,' 227; of history, 37, 227.
Physical Anthropolog)-, 26.
Physics and Politics, 72.
Physiological necessitj-, 277.
Phoenician of Cyprus, 160.
Pilate Pontius, 43.
Pilgrims, Chinese, 243; -ages, 304.
Pioneers, eponymous, of Culture, 13;

Manu, 52; of Japanese Civilisation,

3 : of world's Culture, 33 ; ' 'Pioneers,

Of, Pioneers!" 260.
Pisistratus the Compiler of Homeric

literature, 176.
Pitris, Sanskrit for fathers or ancestors,

12, 13.
Place, Influence of, on Ideas, 258,

-element in Chinese Religion, 68;

in the Sun, 184.
Plant, amulets in Vedic religion, 29; as

god in Chinese Religion, 25.
Plato, 39, 40; Academy, 39; classifica-
tion, 205; of India, 50; Republic,

55; -nisni, 158; -nists, 99.
Pliny, 1, 96, 190.
Plotinus, 160.

"Plunged in thought again" 81.
Pluralism, in Asia, 276: -listic Universe

of Chinese gods, 21.
Plutarch, 59.

Po Chu-i the Chinese poet, 252.
Poetrj', art of, in religion, 132 ; Chinese,

Taoistic, 138; in China, 110.
"Poets of Asia and Europe," 260.
"Polarised" terms, 303.
Po-to-man Chinese for Brahman, 242.
Poly, -gamy, 278 ; -theism in Japan, 272 ;

-theistic, 33 ; Hindii, i hinese and

Japanese, 279; cults, 305.
Pope, Alexander, the poet, 34; Taoist,

121.
Portuguese Settlers, 207.
Porus, an Indian name in Cyrenaic

philosophy, 95.
Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus,

The, 223.
Positivism, miscalled, 73, 76, 176; with

vengeance, in Hindu Thought, 110;
-ists, 53; Confucius not a, 60.

Post; -Alexandrian, 40; -Asokan age,
96, 137; -Buddhistic, 3; -Buddhistic
strands of religious life in China,
2; -Mauryan Hindus, 92.

Postulate, about Asiatic unity, 240;
about God, 35 ; of the Asians, 276.

Powers, grouping of, 280; Secular
Hindu, 256.

PrabtiddhaBharata,The, "The Awaken-
ed India," 304.

Prakrit, an Indian dialect in which
Jaina Scriptures are written, 105,209.

Prakriti, female principle in Hindu
Metaphysics, 30.

Pre; -Aryans, 195; -Buddhist, 26; -Bud-
dhist Japan, 275 ; -Christian Culture,
30, 93, -Christian Era in India, 104;
-Confucian China, 49, 271; Char-
acteristic of, in Shintoism, 273; life
in Japan, 267; -Sakyan elements in
Shiva-cult, 299; -steam days, 189.

Primitive Sciences, 35, 71.

Principles of Tantra, 249, 304.

Printing, art of, introduced into Europe
through Mongol, 235.

"Problems of the sphinx," 33.

Professor at the Breakfast Table, The,
257.

"Progress," dynamic principle, 206.

Proper name for the religions of China,
Japan and India, 303.

"Proper study of mankind," The, 37.

Prophet, of Mecca, 48; of the Faith, 148.

"Propriety, 41, 76.

Protagorases of India, 50.

Protest, against fossils, 40; -ant, 66.

Prussianism among Hindus, 87.

Psalms of Solomon, 114.

Psychological, basis, common in China,
and India, 5 ; necessity. Buddhism
in China a, 138.

Psycho-physical system, 278; -Social
Anthropology, 26.

Ptolemy advised by Asoka, 160.

Ptolomies, 40;

Pulakesin II., Hindu Emperor, 248.

Punjab, Saka settlements in the. 93, 199.

Puranas, 119, 208, 281, 304; Bhakti-cult
and Romanticism in, 217; -ic
Krishna Storj', parallel in Europe,
214; -ist, 290, 300; Japanese, 285.

Puritan England, 56, 228.

Purusha, male principle in Hindu meta-
physics, 30.

Purushapura (Peshawar) in India, 163.

Pushan, a deit}' in Vedic literature 91,
23; disappearance of, 283; hke the
Chinese god of the roads, 24.

INDEX

325

Pushyamitra the Hindu Monarch
advocating Sacrifices, 124.

Pyramids, 32

Pyrenees mountains, the frontier of
Asia, 233.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, 95.

Pythagoras, 32.

Quarters of the sky, spirits of, in
Chinese mythology, 22.

Queen of the Xaoist Paradise, Legend
regarding, 139.

Quellers of Misery, 53, 79.

Quest of Holy Grail, 35.

Questions, open, 65, 160; "-ionings
Obstinate," Wordsworthian , of
Confucius, 75.

Quietism, practised in China since
time immemorial, 30, 31, 85; -istic
announcement, 54.

Race; -boundaries obliterated, 99; Cen-
tral Asian, 162; -consciousness Chi-
nese ,5; -Consciousness Indo-Iranian,
5; -destiny, 261; -fusion within
India, 201; -ideal Collective, 178;
Influence of, on Ideas, 258;
-Intermixture, 93, 179, 204; Mixed,
Descendant of, in India, 200;
puisne or later-born, i.e. Young,
162; "Superior," 256; -theories,
starting point of, 261.

Raghu-vanisam , a Sanskrit Epic, "The
House of Raghu," 185, 208, 225,
267; the embodiment of Hindu
India, 228; Vaishnava hymn in,
215.

Ragozin, 5, 7, 8, 18.

Rajaraja the Great, Hindu Emperor,
249.

Rajasika image, 290.

Rajasuya, a Sacrifice in India, 72.

Rajendrachola, Emperor of Southern
India, 4.

Rajputs, 200; So-called, 196.

Rama, Brithof, the Great Saviour, 113;
-cult, 119, 136, 148; -legends, 127;
-stories on Stupas, 165.

Ramayana, Sanskrit Epic, 115, 163,
178, 209.

Ramamohana, modern Reformer, of
Bengal, in India, 125.

Ramkrishna the Spiritual preceptor of
Vivekananda, the Energist, 126.

Ramkrishna, His Life and Teachings,
249.

Ram Tirath, a modern preacher, of the
U. P., in India, 126.

Rapson Prof., 197.

"Real Nature of things," Chinese
theory about, 108.

Reality, unconditioned, absolute and

transcendent — conceived both in

ancient China and India, 80.
"Record of Ancient Matters" Japanese,

268;.Ghinese influence in, 269.
Record of Buddhist Religion, 241 ; of

Western Regions (Hiuen Thsang),

286.
Re-interpreted Confucianism, 254.
Relative (historical) unity of Asia, 280.
Relativity, 107; Doctrine, 41.
Religion, Art of Sculpture and Painting

in, 132; "Eternal Way," proper

name for Asian religions, 803; of

feeble minds 71; of the Folk, 283;

"of good Citizenship," 76, 79; of

Love, 144; of Love in the Puranas,

210.
Religion in China, 13, 71 ; of China, 74.
Religious, Beliefs of Modern Hindus

almost similar to Confucian, 61.

Consciousness, Asian, 262; difficult

to understand, 56; of Hindus, no

water-tight compartment of, 122;

of the Chinese and Hindus, 30.

Development, between the Old and

the New Testaments, 148; Hindu

and Chinese, 64.
Renaissance, Hindu, 202-8, 230; in

Europe, 182, 223; of the Chinese

through Hindu influence, 251;

Vikramadityancarriedforward,306;

preserved in Japan, 248.
Renan Ernest, 42.
"Render unto Cffisar the things that

are Caesar's," 54.
Republic, The, 55.
Rescript Educational, of Japan, 89.
Restoration of 1868, in Japan, 248.
"Retrospective Confucianism," 175.
Revivalists Shinto, 270.
Rhys Davids, 52, 69, 70, 72, 77, 82, 91,

94, 112, 134, 178.
Richard Dr., 142, 154, 157.
"Rights of Man, The," 37.
Rig Veda, Earliest Hindu Sacred Book,

7, 8, 12, 14, 18, 22, 24, 27, 224, 267.
"Ring in the new," 259.
Rishis, Seers or inspired prophets

(Hindu), 9, 13, IS, 19, 32, 36, 51,

55.
River; -god Chinese, Hopeh, 116; -hymn

Hindu, 22.
Rita, Sanskrit word for Cosmic order,

equivalent to Chinese Tao; 275,

276, 278; Moral as well as physical,

14.
Road, 13 ; -God in China and India, 24.
Rockhill, 242,
Roy Professor, 104.
Royal Asiatic Society (London), 166,

326

INDEX

287, 298; (North China Branch),
117, 172.
Rome, 47, 149, 183; Exports of Specie
from, to India, 96; -an,. 40, 43;
Caesars, 55; Celebrities, 59; Im-
perialism, 82; masters of the Jews,
41; not less superstitious than
Indians, 64 ; -ised Christianity, 258.

Romanticism, 91; carried to the nth
power, 150; in art and literature,
115; mythology of, 138; Religion
of, 282.'

I?mju-Kokiishi,]a.-ga.nese official record,
245.

Russia, during Tartar domination, 235;
blood, Mongol element in, 233.

Sacrifice, 6; Confucius' belief in, 61;
inXig Veda, 8-9; Chinese, 6-7.

' 'Sadanga or the six limbs of Painting' '
289, 291.

Sadhana, Tantric literature, 292.

Sage, 36; Eternal, 44; Great, 46, 49;
Iranian Taoist, 57; {Magi), 154;
Perfect, 48; Sages of Shantting,
The, 59.

Saicho, Japanese Scholar in China,
263,

Saint, Jaina, 67; -lore Buddhist,
Brahmanic and Jaina, 120, 302.

Sakas, 162, 199 ; in India, ancestors of
Rajputs, 196.

Sakuntala, Sanskrit drama, 172, 225.

Sakvasimha, 4, 32, 36, 40, 41, 48, 52,
"65, 67, 77, 80, 87,' 91, 104, 115,
224; a giant, 50; an agnostic, 74;
Analects, 53; Kalidasa a follower
of, 209 ; the man, 142; Moral tracts,
102; Nii~oanist, 226; not the father
of Mahayanism (Buddhism) 177;
not a god, 53; not vet studied with
reference to the historic back-
ground, 56; son oi a. Markgraf, 51;
the historic person, 44; uncle's
descendant in China, 238.

Samajjas, Pali for "shows with
scenerj', dance, etc.," 113.

Samas, most ancient Sacred Songs of
India, 30.

Sankhya Darsana, 66, 142.

Samudragupta, the Hindu Napoleon,
184, 224.

Samyama, Sans, for self-restraint, 255.

Sanitaria, Sanskrit word equivalent to
Eternal, 14: Dharma, the really
indigenous name for the faith of
the Indians, 14; -ism the same as
Chinese Taoism, 303; proper name
for Indian religion, 61; the name
for the religion of China, Japan,
and India, 275.

San-goku, Japanese word for three-
countries India, China and Japan
4, 236, 244, 246, 265, 279, 282, 303;
-culture, 248; -ichi, Japanese for
"First in the three countries, " 236.

Sankaracharyya, 203, 224, .S06.

Sanskrit letters in Central Asian
tablets, 190.

Sanyasa, Sanskrit for asceticism, 228.

Saracen , 230 ; -ic culture, 234 ; -ic culture
in India, 203; -isation of India
202.

Saul, the Jew of Tarsus, apostle of
Christianity, 160

Saraswati, an Indian river, 22: a deitv
in Vedic religion, 28; goddess of
Buddhist China and Japan as well
as of Puranist India, 289, 292, 293
296.

Sarkar Jadunath, Professor, 200.

Sasthi, Mother, Hindu goddess, 301.

Sastri, Haraprasada, 195, 29S ; Vidhu-
sekhara, 298.

Satapatha Brahtnana, a Vedic treatise
10, 66.

.Sai^-institution Hindu, 252.

Satrap, a Persian title in India, 197.

Sattvika image, 290.

Scandinavian Sagas, 13.

Scepticism in Hindu Philosophy, 103.

Schimmer Mr., 234.

School, of Asia, Hindusthan, 229; "of
Hellas," 38.

Schopenhauer, 54, 85; theory mis-
leading, 226.

Sciences, Hindu, thirty-two, in number.
102-104; Primitive, 35.

Sc}'thia, 162; Barbarians of, 233; -ian,
97; -o-Draridian, 195; -ianisation
of India, 199.

Sculpture, art of, in religion, 132;
of the Gupta Period, 221, 253;
Post-Asokan, 134.

Seal Brajendranath Prof., 43, 104, 223.

Sea-voyages Chinese, 243.

"Secret of the Ear is in the Open
Heart," The 144.

Secularism in Hindu Literature, 110.

Seleukos Nikator, 82, 93.

Seminal influence of the Sun and the
Moon, 131.

Sen Dineschandra Mr., 298.

Sewell, 96, 190.

Sexual Science Hindu, 50, 102.

Shaiva, 143, 263; -cum-Shakta, 293;
deities in Kalidasa's works, 213,
295; faith in Tamil literature, 212;
literature, 112; -ising Vaishnava,
261; -ism, 3, 177: Confucianism,
like, 132; in Japan, 295-6.

INDEX

327

Shakespeare, 55, 208, 228; the Hindu,
Kalidasa, 185.

Shakta, 266; -ism, 3.

Shakti (Energy), 288, 293; Buddhist,
294.

ShSngti (Supreme Being) Chinese, 15,
IS, 20, 25, 34, 58, 278; a colleague
of, Confucius, 92; -cult, 30; the
idea weak in Shintoism, 273.

Shaw Bernard, 56, 208, 277.

She- King (Book of Poetry or Odes)
Chinese Classic, 6, 10, 11, 15, 16,
17, 21, 36.

Shi-Hwangti "The First Emperor,"
40, 80, 84, 91; connected with the
Hindu Maurya Emperor, 96; not a
bigot, S3; quest of Elixir Vitae,
120.

Shinto, 4, 271; priest, 265; shrines
with Buddhist priests, 263; Shinto
the way of the Gods, 270; -ism, 90,
267, 303; Chinese, 11; in India, 12;
the proper name for the religion of
China, Japan and India, 275; Vedas
of, 270.

Shiva, a Hindu god, 67; a new deity
in India, US; -cult, 119; Neo-
Hindu, 299; Japanese Fudo, 295.

"Shortest way" 41.

Shotoku Taishi, Prince, of Japan, 3,
247, 267, 266.

Shu-Kins:, the Chinese Classic (Book
of History), 6, 15, 36; Hindu, 52.

Siam, 281.

Sianfu, ancient Capital of China, 83,
243.

Sila, Pali Biiddhist term for "Pro-
priety," 76.

Silk from China into Europe, 98.

Silpa-sastra, Hindu literature on arts
and crafts, 103.

Simcox Miss, 25.

Sino -Japanese, 245; Buddhists really
Hindu, 283; -logy, 47; -logues, 32,
33, 139; need study Indologj', 26.

Sir Galahad, 35.

Sitala Mother, Hindu goddess of small-
pox, 301.

Sivaji the Great, founder of Maratha
Empire in India, 203.

Six, Canons of Hindu and Chinese
Painting, 291; Sects of Japanese
Buddhism, 263.

Skandagupta's defeat of Huns, 214.

"Slave-morality" in the Bible, 54.

Smriti-Sastras , Socio-religious, So-
cio-economic, and Socio-political
treatises in Sanskrit, 52.

Smith Vincent, 82, 94, 133, 149, 151,
156, 184, 190, 196.

So-called, Buddhism, 4; Hindu, 291,
300; Superior Races, 65, 256; Super-
stitions 274.

So-called Tartars, The, 235.

Socialism, 279.

Sociology, Asiatic, 55; evolutional view,
281; mediseval Chinese, 71; vitiated
by Western superstitions, 65.

Socrates, 39; of India, 50 ; -ic Dialogues
of Confucius, 74; Method, 40, 50,
59.

Somatology or Physical Anthropology,
26.

Some Hindu Silpa-sastras, 290.

Song of Myself , by Whitman, 150.

"Sons of God," 128.

Sons of Han, the Chinese so called
after the illustrious Han Dynasty,
12; "Son of Heaven," the Chinese
Emperor so called, 36 ; the first, 40.

Sophists, 38, Chinese, 49; "calculators
and economists," 143.

"Sorrows of Werter," 39.

South India, 81, 94 ; Chola fleet in, 241 ;
prince, Bodhidharma, 192 ; South-
Indianisation of India, 203.

Sparta, Spirit of, in India, 87.

Specimens of old Indian Poetry, 149.

Spencer Herbert, 21 ; -ian, 32.

Spenser Edmund, 218.

Sphere of influence, 95, 233 ; Asiatic,
in Europe, 234 ; Hindu, in China,
141 ; Kushan (Indo-Scythian), 166 ;
Non-Aryan, 51.

"Sphinx, Problems of," 33.

Spirit, of Alexander, 93; of Asia, 266;
of the districts, 22 ; of the Ground
in Chinese Religion, 22; of Hindu-
sthan, 225 ; of the Path, 23.

Spirit, of the Chinese People, 76 ; of
Laws, 72.

"Splendid Isolation," 169, 1S9, 223.

Spring and Autumn Annals, the only
original work of Confucius, 50.

Stars worshipped in China, 22, 62.

Statistician, v-hinese, 47; Indian, 202.

Stein, 167.

Stevenson Mrs., 53, 66, 105, 211.

Stoic, 40, 99 ; -ism, 159.

Stork-cryHill in the history of Taoism.
174. '

"Storm and stress," 39.

Stormers and Stressers, 50.

Strangling of Buddhism, 283.

"Strong Son of God, Immortal Love "
43.

Struggle for existence, 34; effects of,
on Indian castes, 207.

St. Thomas, the alleged missionisins
of, 157. ^

328

INDEX

Studies, from an Eastern Hom,e, 293 ;

in Chinese Religion, 154.
Stupa or Mound in Buddhist and

Jaina religions, 123.
Sturm, und drangi.s. storm and stress,

39 ; in India, 50.
Suan-tzu-lo-Satsui, Chinese for Vajra-

satta, 289.
Subject races can have no politics, 55.
"Sufferance the badge of our tribe,"

55.
Sugawara Michizane, Japanese Con-

fucianist, 264.
Sui Dynasty unifies Northern and

Southern China, 168.
Smko Queen, of Japan, 247, 266.
Sukra-niti, Hindu political treatise, 73 ;

on Art 255, 290 ; on Militarism, 85.
Suma-Chien, ' 'the Chinese Herodotus, ' '

48, 97, 124.
Sumida-gawa the Japanese river, 258,

306.
Sun, -Eclipse in Chinese Religion, 22,

-set of an old System, 40.
Sung, Dynasty, 236, 239, 246 ; Emperor's

Hinduised rhapsody to I,ao-tsze,

253; School of Chinese learning,

264 ; School of Confucianism, 254 ;

State, 62, 63.
Sunya or Void, Doctrine of, 143, 298.
"Superior races" so-called, 65, 256.
Supernatural world, Confucius' opinion

on, 60, 111.
Superstitions, 304; of the Greeks and

Romans, 65 ; of the Occident

regarding the Orient, 64, 227 ;

"Religions of feeble minds," 71;

so-called, of Japan, 274.
Su Shih, Chinese art-critic, 255.
Sutra, Sanskrit for formula, 55, 73,

155, 261, 287;of Hindu nationalism,

225.
Suzuki Mr., 31, 108; on the Contem-
poraries of Confucius, 65; on the

6th Cent. B.C., 48.
Svastika, an Indian mystical design

(masonic) common to Buddhism

Jainism, Hinduism, 124.
Swadeshi (home-made), 267, 269.
Synthesis, Hegelian, in Kalidasa, 226;

in Asian culture, 262.
Synthetic Philosophy, The 32.
Syria, Hellenistic, 81; king of, 94;

language, 159 ; Saviour, 79.
Tablets, in Chinese religion, 132.
Tagore A. N., 289, 291; Rabindranath,

126, 208.
Taigensui, Japanese Kartika (god of

war), 295.
Tai Mount, 117, 140.

Taiso (Tai-Tsung), 246 ; Tang Napoleon
of China, 23 1 .

Takakusu Prof., 241, 245, 256, 263.

Tdmasika image, 290.

Tamil, literature Jaina, Shaiva, 212;
Napoleons, 203.

Tamilian Antiquary, The, 195.

Tang, 305; Dynasty, a military colossus,
231 ; Emperors of China, 236; epoch
of Chinese history, 241 ; fall of the,
243; Great, Dynasty, 173; mighty,
China of the, 168, 268; -Sung Era
(A.D. 600-1250), 4.

Tantras, Sanskrit works on religion,
173, 281; Deities, 289; literature
in Tibet from Bengal, 249 ; Studies,
304; -ic Hinduism, 4, 305; -ist, 290.
300; Japanese, 285.

"Tantra-ruler of Darkness," 285.

Tdo, Chinese word for 'Way,' 14, 31,
26, 57, 90, IDS, 275, 276.

Taoism, 13, 41, 253, 303; Confucius an
apostle of, 57; Hindu, in Upani-
shads,SO ;in England, 108 ; in India,
109; in the Neo-Plationist Plotinus,
160; may have somethingin common
with Pre-Buddhist Hinduism, 26;
proper name for Chinese Religion,
62; the name for the religion of
China, Japan and India, 275;
Sources of, 26.

Taoist, 49, 83, 99, 237, 263, 274, 282;
Cap, 266; legends, 29; lore, 49;
Metaphysics foreign, 96; Papacy,
1 73 ; retirement praised in Classics,
57; Sage, 57; strands of religious
belief, 2; works, 27.

Tao-te-Ching, the Bible of Taoism, 107;
the Chinese Gita, 100-9; Containing
the saying of I,aotsze, 109; in the
neo-Platonist Plotinus, 160.

Tara, Hindu and Buddhist goddess,
287, 288, 292, 296; Red, 293.

Tarsus, Centre of Greek Culture at, 160.

Tartar, 81, 97, 162, 193; Conquerors of
India Hinduised, 199; Europe, 179.

Tartarisation of India, 198.

Tavernier, 1, 227.

Taxila, 99; Antalkidas of, 135.

Temple, Confucian, first, 132.

"Ten Commandments," 73, 89.

Tenjiku, Japanese word for Heaven
referring to India, 4, 245.

Tertullian, Collector of Bible-lore, 156.

Tennyson, 259.

Theatre Chinoise, 251.

Theophrastus, 104.

Theories regarding the Orient, 56.

"There are more things in Heaven and
Earth," 84.

INDEX

329

"Thing of beauty is a joy for ever"

with the Hindus, 220.
' 'Through Nature up to Nature's God, ' '

35.
Thunder-god, in India, 27; in Japan,

285
Tibet, 166, 249, 281, 293. .
Tienchu, Chinese word equivalent to

Heaven, referring to India, 4, 245.
Tirthankara, the apostles of Jainism,

126.
Tiru-Vachakar, Tamil Shaiva poem,

213.
Titsang, Buddhist god in China, 284,

296, 305; -cult, 286; -ists, 363.
To, Do, Japanese for "Way," 275, 296.
Toleration, 279; in Asoka's Dhmmna,

78.
Tortoise-worship in China, 25.
Trade with the Roman Empire, Chinese

98; Hindu, 190.
Tradition, Hindu about Vikramaditya,

218; Indian, 30; in Japan, 267; old

Chinese, opposed, 102.
Traditions on the Inner Law, The

(by Itsing), 286.
■"Transcendental" in the "Positive,"

229.
T'ranscendentalists German, 108.
Transformation, social and economic,

through warfare, 204.
T"rans- Himalayan, Asia, 282;Buddhism,

295 ; race -characteristics, 145 ; Taras ,

293.
Transmigration, 66.
"Transvaluation of Values," 43.
Travel, age of foreign, 241; of Kuma-

rajiva, and Fa Hien, 191 ; Travels

of Fa-Hien, 181; of Marco Palo,

233; -lers of Mediaeval Asia, 237.
Trimurti, Sanskrit for three Imager or

three deities, 67.
Tripitaka, three groups of Pali Bud-
dhist treatises, 91 ; Chinese, 192,

209, 224, 286.
Triple foundation of Asiatic conscious-
ness, 279.
Tsi, Dynasty, 239, 240; Empire of the

Chinese, 110, 162; state, 62, 63, 80.
Tso Chuen, testifying to star-worship,

62.
Tsze Kung, disciple of Confucius, 74.
Tubingen School of Bible-criticism, 155.
Tun, Tien, Chinese for retirement

from world, 31.
Turk, Capture of Constantinople by,

97, 230; Contests with Holy Roman

Empire, 234; Europe, 179.
•Turkestan, 166, 231; Campaigns, 139.
"Twain," the meeting of, 101.

The Two Sieges of Vienna, 224.

Tyaga, Sanskrit for renunciation, 228.

Tzinista (China), 242.

Udyana (in N. W. India), a man of, in
China, 240.

Ujjein, (in India,) a man of, in China,
239; King of. Son of, in China, 240.

Uma, wife of Hindu god Shiva, 118.

Unchanging East, 258.

Undtfiled "well,;' 216.

Un-Greek Individualism and cosmo-
politanism, 40.

United, India, 40; States, 172.

Unity, (Absolute and relative) of Asia,
280; Asiatic, 236, 241; threshold
of, 306; a Philosophical necessity,
279 ; in the human organism, 278 ;
in notions, 4.

Universe, 13; considered animistically,
35; tripartite (Heaven, Earth and
Atmosphere), 19; -alism Stoic, 160.

Universal Order or Conduct of Life, 75.

Universal Races' Congresses, 99.

"Unknown," 128.

Upanishad, the philosophical portions
of ancient Vedic I/iterature, 29, 30,
54, 209; Chhandogya, 66; -India,
178; -ism, 84; -ists, 113.

Vairagya, Sanskrit f or dispassion , 228.

Vaishnava, 143, 263, 283, 287; Jainis-
ing, 216; literature, 112; male
deity, 266; really Buddhists, 301;
-ism, 3j in Japan, 297; -ite en-
vironment in the Mahdbharata
127.

Vaishnavism, Shaivaisin. and Minor
Religious Systems, 305.

Vajrasatta, (whose esseace is thunder-
bolt, ) 289.

Vallabhi, in Gujrat, Jaina Council at,
212.

Valmlkian, "127; bards, 149; rhapsodists,
115.

"Values," "transvalued," 43.

Varahamihira, the Hindu Scientist, 71,
208, 222; on foreign teachers, 223.

Vardhanas, Emperors of India, 2U0. _

"Vrarendra Research Society" (Raj-
shahi, Bengal), 288.

Variety of wants, 277.

Varuna 18, 19, 20, 70 ; chief god in
Ancient Hindu Scriptures, 14;
disappearance of, 283; the Super-
intendent of the Hindu Tao or
Rita, 15.

Vasumitru, President of Buddhist
council, 63.

Vasu Nagendranath, 299.

Vedanta in the Neo-Platonist Plotinus,
160

330

INDEX

Veda,' ancient Hindu Scriptures, 10;
30, 50, 68, 209; of Shintoism, 270;
-Vyasa, the master of Scholiasts 52;
the Compiler of the Vedas.

Vedic, Age, 32 ; cult, 72 ; gods, 70 ; hymn,
22, 23; Indians, 9, 12, 15, 27, 59;
characteristics of, in Shintoism,
273; Literature, Compiler of, 7, 29,
35, 52; Religion, 7; rehgion, Tan-
trikism a form of, 305; Rehgious
Beliefs almost similar to Confucian,
61 ; Religion martial, 36 ; Rishis,
18, 51 ; Sacrifice, 8; Scholar, French,
23; Shangti, 20; texts, 10, 25.

Vedic, India, 5, 18; Index, 29.

Vedists, 10, 69 ; quite at home with
Confucius, 61.

"Vehicle," 1/esser and Greater, 141.

Venice, connected with Asiatic cities,
235; Marco Polo of, 244.

Verification of hypothesis, 304.

Vesalius the anatomist, 104.

Vidyas, Sanskrit for Sciences thirty-two
in number, 102, 222, 252; Asiatic
standard of, 245.

Vienna, gates of, Turkish Battles at,
234.

Viharas or Monasteries, 104.

Vikraraaditya (Sun of Power), a Hindu
Napoleon or Alexander, 185, 191,
221, 253 ; Celebrities [Nava-ratna, )
2^1-22; Era, 195; Imperialism, 208;
renaissance, 203 ; Renaissance pre-
served in Japan , 248 ; carried
forward, 30(5.

"Vile Turk," 170.

Vindhya mountains in India, 199.

Vini, Vidi, Vici, 172.

Vishnu, a Hindu god, 67, 70; -cvilt, 119,
136; Gupta Emperors worshippers
of, 213; Hymn to, in Raghu-
vamsain, 215; identifiedwithAvalo-
kiteswara, 287; "Vishnu's self
disdained not mortal birth" 114,
149; -Sirima worship, 147.

Visser Mr, 233, 286, 305.

Viswamitra, a. Vedic Sage, 27.

Vivekananda, the Hindu Nietzschean
Energist, of modern Bengal, 126 ;
-ists, 304.

Volksdichter, 44.

Vondel the Dutch poet, 228.

Vyasa, lit. compiler ( Hindu) , 1 0, 50, 61,
176 ;Band of, 50; Chinese, Confucius,
50.

Waddell, 287, 291, 293.

Wan King, 11.

Wanderlehrer , 44 ; in India, 53.

Wani, Korean Scholar as teacher in
Japan, 268.

Warfare, Influence of, on Social and
economic life, 204; History of
Indian, 206.

War-god in Chinese religion, 22, in
Hindu 213, 295, 301; in Japanese,
285, 295.

Warren, 79.

Waterfield, 118.

Watters, 173.

"Way," See marga, magga, michi,
Tao. To, 13, 90 ; Permanent, 62.

"Wealth of Ormus and of Ind," 226.

Web of Indian Life, The, 252.

Webb, IbO.

Wedlock between the East and the
West, 160.

"We have but faith; we cannot know,"
217.

Wei Dynasty, 237.

' 'Well , " ' 'undefiled, " 216 ;of devotional
electicism, 217.

Wen Marquis, 63, 116.

Wen Ti, God of Literature in China, 117.

Werner, 21, 25, 63, 110, 117, 141, 172,
251, 261.

West, 40, 99; Idol-worship in, 129;,
Taoist stories of , 139; "Safe-guard
of the," Venice, 234.

Western, Asia, 96, 97, 189 ; explored, by
WuTi, 138; "Barbarians," Chinese
expression referring to Hindus;
3; "Countries" referring to India
and other "barbarian lands," 238-
39; Western Origin of Chinese
Civilisation, The, 22, 63; Western
Tsin Dynasty, 237.

What Japan owes to India, 245.

"Whole Duty of M ," 53, 72.

"Whole-India" an organic synthesis,
227.

White Hun, 162.

Whitman, 259; " Song of Myself ," 150.

Wilhelm Dr. 26.

William of Orange an avatdra of Old
Testament gods, 214.

Woo King, 21.

World, 13; -culture, cross-section of,
32; -culture, student of, 100;
-Forces cult of, in Asia, 34, 61, 63,
83, 128, 276; -monarch, Ajoka, 94;
-Power, Greece as, 82; "World-
sense," 189; "-sense" of Alexan-
der, 93.

' 'World, the Flesh and the Devil, "229.

Wordsworth, 234.

Worship of Nature in Shintoism, 272.

' 'Writ large, ' ' China, ' 'but Confucius, ' '
112.

Wu Ti Emperor, Illustrious, 80, 97, 98;.
Taoist, 121 ; of Han dynasty, 136.

INDEX

331

Wu Dynasty, 237.

JVu-wei, Chinese term for Quietism, 30.

Yyna, Sanskrit word for Sacrifice, 7.

Yajnavalkya, Hindu sociologist, 224.

Yama, Hindu god of Death, 106, 296;
Ancient Vedic deity, 13.

Yamato, ancient name of Japan, 12;
Consciousness, 236; faith, 275;
Damashii, (The Spirit of Japan),
90, 188; race, 193, 266, 302.

}'an£-, the male principle in Chinese
metaphj'sics, 30, 130.

Vang Chu, Chinese pessimist, 101.

Yangtse the, 192, 246, 258, 267.

Yankee, 260; Ideahst Whitman, 150.

Yaou Thsin Period, 238.

Vatis, Sanskrit word for those who
practise self-control, 31.

Yavana, (Greek) 190,301; as teachers of
Hindus, 223; dames, 187; philoso-
phy, a foreign system of thought
in India, 1 04 ; -isation of India, 198.

Year No. I of Hindu Imperialism, 81.

Yellow Emperor, 108 ; Sea, 234.

Yengishiki, Japanese record, 268, 271.

Yen-lo-wang, Chinese Yama, 296.

Yi-King ( 'Book of Changes,") a
Chinese Classic, 29, 275; Hindu, 52.

Yin, the female principal in Chinese
metaphysics, 30; struggling with
Yang, 58, 131.

Yin, Yih, Chinese terms for retirement
from the world, 31.

Yodo-gawa, Jap. river, 258, 306.

Yoga, Sanskrit term for meditation,
30, 225, 228; in art, 290; in China,
173; in Sukra-niti, 255; in the
neo-Platonist Plotinus, 160.

Yogaism (Practice of meditation) 84.

Young Germany, 54.

Yuan Chu, the Taoist poet. 111.

Yue Chi or Indo-Scythian, 98, 140, 163.

Yuganiara, Sanskrit for Transforma-
tion or Revolution in Zeitgeist,
127, 215.

Yuk-lih, (Calendar of Jade,) 284.

Yule Colonel, 233, 234.

Zarathustra, 32, 40, 41, 148; Laud of,
155.

Zeitgeist, 62, 83, 84, 102, 128, 215;
Hindu idea of revolution in, 127.

Zen, Japanese for Hindu Dhyana, 255.

Zeno, 160.

Zeus, 266.

Zinc, use of, in pharmacopoeia, 224.

Zo-Anthropy, 25.

Zodiac, 62.

Zollverein, Customs Union, 91.

Zoroaster, by Jackson, 160.

Zoroastrian, 99; exiles in China, 243;
-ised Persia, 153; -ism, 14".

WORKS RELATING TO INDIA AND
HINDU CULTURE

SQENCE

I. Comparative Electro-Physiology, (I<ongmans 15s). Prof. J. C. Bose, D. So,, (totidon).

A Plant Response (T.ongmans /■j-if). Prof. J. C. Bose, D. Sc. (I,ondon).

3. Researches on the Irritability of Plants (Longmans 7s-6d). Prof. J. C. Bose, D. Sc.

4. Response in the Living and Non-I,iving (Longmansios).Prof. J.C. Bose, D. Sc, (London).

5. History of Hindu Chemistry 2 vols. (Bengal Chemical Works, Calcutta). Prof. P C.

Ray, D. Sc.

6. The Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus (Longmans 12s. 6d.). Prof. B. N. Seal, Ph. D.

7. Indian Medicinal Plants with 1,300 Plates (Pauini OflBce, Allaliabad ^16), Lt. Col-

Kirtikar, Major Basu, Prof. Chatterji.

8. Medicine of Ancient India Pt. I. Osteology (Oxford) . Dr. Hcernle.

9. History of Aryan Medical Science (Macmillan). Gondal.
10. Materia Medica of the Hindus (Calcutta). Dutt.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SIR RABINDRANATH TAGORE (THE
NOBEL-PRIZE-MAN, I9J3-I4)

I. GU^njali or Song-offerings (Macraillan 4s. 6d.).

?. The Gardener (Lyrics of Love and Life) (Macmillan 4S.6d..

3. The Crescent Moon (Child- Poems) (Macmillan 4s. 6d.).

4. Chitra (a play— an allegory of love's meaning) (Macmillan 2S. 6d).

5. The Post Office (a play) (Macmillan 2S. 6d.).

6. The King of the Dark Chamber (a Play) Macmillan 4s. 6d.).

7. Rabindranath Tagore the Man and his Poetry(Dodd Mead & Co., New York, $1.50). Roy.

8. Tagore (Loudon). Rhys.

MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY

1. Vaishnavism and Christianity, (Calcutta). Prof B. N. Seal.

2. Science of Religion tudbodhana Office, Calcutta) Sw^mi Vivekananda.

3. Epochs of Civilisation (Luzac, London 5s. 4d.). p. N. Bose, F.G.S.

4. The New Essays in Criticism (Literary) (Calcutta). Prof, Seal.

5. Science of Emotions (Benares) Prof. Bhagavau Das

6. Hindu philosophy of Conduct ( Madras 6s. 8d ) . Prof. Rangacharya.

7. Essays in National Idealism (Indian Review Office). Coomaraswamy,

8. India ; Her Cult and Education (Panini Office), Prof. P. N. Mookerji.

9. Krishna and the Glt^ (Calcutta, 3s. 4d.) Tattwabhushana.

10. Sadhan^ or the Realisation of life (Macmillan 5 s) . Tagore.

11. Science of History and the Hope of Mankind. (Longmans 2s. 6d.). Prof. B. K. Sarkar,

12. Science of Peace (Benares). Prof. Bhagavan Das.

13. Chhandogya Upanishad (Panini Office, i6s). Vasu.

14. Yoga philosophy (Panini Office, 7s). Vasu.

15. Vedanta philosophy (Panini Office, /"I). Vasu.

16. Vaisesikha Philosophy (Panini Office, 9S-4.). Sinlia.

17. Samkhya philosophy (Panini Office, £1). Sinha.

18. Nyaya philosophy (Panini Office 8s). Prof. VidySbhushana.

19. Psychical Research and Man's Survival (Modem Review Office, Calcutta 6d) Prof. Haldar.

20. Introduction to the Science of Education (Longmans 3S. 6d.). Prof. B. K. Sarkar.

21. philosophy of Brahraoism (Calcutta, 3S. 4d.). Tattwabhushana.

22. Vedanta, its relation to Modern Thought (Calcutta. 3s. 4d.) Tattwabhushana.

23. Jnana Yoga (Udbodhana Office, Calcutta). Sw^mi Vivekananda
S4. Bhakti Yoga (Udbodhana Office, Calcutta). Swami Vivekftnanda.
25. Raja Yoga (Udbodhana Office, Calcutta). Swami Vivekananda.
»6. Karma Yoga (Udbodhana Office, Calcutta). Swami Vivekananda.
27. Hatha Yoga (Panini Office, 2s). Vasu.

28 philosophical and Literary Essays (Nava-vidhana Office, Calcutta). Prof. B. N. Sen.

29 Chinese Religion through Hindu Eyes — A study in the tendencies of Asiatic Mentality

(Commercial Press Shanghai 6s.). Prof. B. K. Sarkar.

30. Addresses Literary and Academic(Calcutta). Sir Asutosh Mookerji. Late Vice-chancellor.

31. A Few Thoughts on Education (Calcutta 3s. 4d.) Sir G. D. Banerji. Late Vice-Chancellor,

32. Hindu Realism (Indian Press, Allahabad) . Chatterji.

33. The Pedagogy of the Hindus and the Message of India (Panini Office 6d). B. K. Sarkar

34. Education in Baroda. T.R. Pilndya, Ph.D. (Columbia).

35. Religion and Dharma (Longmans). Nivedit^.

36. Aspects of the Ved^nta (Ind. Rev. is).

ECONOMICS AND POLITICS.

1. Ussays on Indian Economics. (Indian Review Office, Madras as. 8d). Justice Ranade.

>. Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (London). Naoroji.

3. Economic History of British India (London 2. vols.) . liutt-,

4. The Economics of British Irtdia. (Calcutta 4S.). Prof. J. N. Sarkar.

5. Indian Economics (Macraillan 3s 6d). Prof. Banerji.

6. Introduction to Indian Economics (Calcutta). Prof. Mookerji.

7. Indian Industrial and Economic Problems (Poona, is 4d). Prof. Kale.

8. Agricultural Industries in India (Indian Review Office, Madras isid). Sayani.

9. The Swadeshi (One's-own-Country or Home-Industry) Movement (Ind, Rev. is. 4d.).

10. Recent Indian Finance (Indian Review Office, Madras). Wacha,

11. The Imperial Gazetteer of India. (London). Vol. on Economics. Vol. on Administration.

12. The Fonndations of Indian Economics (Longmans). Prof. Mukerjee,

13. Indian National Congre'is. (Indian Review Office, Madras 4s). Natesan.

14. Indians of South Africa (Indian Review Office. Madras is. 4d.). Polak.

15. Report and Speeches of the Social Conference. (Leader Office, Allahabad) Chintamani.

16. The Position of Indian Women (London). Mah^rani Baroda.

17. Political Speeches of Publicists: (Indian Review Office); (a) Hon. Naoroji. (2s. 8d,).

(4) Hon. Banerji. (c) Hon. Gokhale. (4s). (rf) Sir Mehta (?) Hon. Malaviya 0)
Mr. Lalmohan Ghosh (.f) Mr. Joshi (A) Mr. pftl («) Sir Rashbehari Ghosh, (is).

18. The Congress Diary. (Bee Press, Calcutta, is)

19. Reports of Indian Industrial Co'iference. (R. N. Mudholkar, Am'raoti, C.P. India)

20. The Growth of Currency Organisations in India (Higginbotham, Madras 6s) Dhari.

21. Lives of Eminent Indians (Indian Review Office). 50 booklets 4d. each.

2J. History of Indian National Evolution (Indian Review Office 2s. 8d). Majumdar.

23. Roraesh Dutt (Dent. London 3S. 6d.). (iupta.

24. Telang (Indian Review, is, 4d.). Naik.

ANCIENT HINDU POLITICAL SCIENCE

I. The Artha-sastra of Kautilya (Mysore). Translated by Shamasastri from Sanskrit

a. The Niti-sSstra of K9,mandaka (Calcutta). Translated by Dutt from Sanskrit.

3. The Niti-sastra of Sukr^charyya CPanini Office 8s.). ,, B. K. Sarkar from Sanskrit,

4- Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Longmans 3s 6d.). Naren Law,

5. Science of Social Organisation based on Sanskrit Mann Samhita. Bhagavan Das.

6. ^vX'Bsl'lV^ Ayeeti Akbari, Gladwin.

7. Warfare in Ancient India (Ind. Rev. 6d), Jagannathaswanii.

CLASSICAL SANSKRIT LITERATURE IN EN3LISH VERSE

I. The Hero and the Nymph (Modern Review Office, Calcutta is). Aurobinda Ghosh.

3. Lays of Ancient Jnd. R. C Dutt.

3. Nala and Damayanti (Paniui Office aS,). Milman.

4- Indian Ballads (fauini Office 2s). Waterfield,

5. Idylls from "the Sanskrit (Panini office 2s. 8d.). Griffith.

6. Scenes from the Ram^yaua (Panini Office), Griffith.

7. Specimens of Old Indian Poetry (Panini Office 2S,). Griffith.

8. Shakuntala, an Indian Drama by Ku.lidS.sa (Dent and Sons, London is.). Prof. Rydei

9. Meghaduta or " C'oud-Messenger " of Ka.Uda,sa (panini Office is.). Sarkar

10. Uttara-charitam, a Drama (Harvard Oriental Series). Belvalkar.

i\. History of Sanskrit Literature (Reprint, panini Office 7s), MaxmuUer.

la. History of Sanskrit Literature (London). Macdonell.

13. History of Indian Literature (Loudon), Weber.

CULTURE-HISTORY

1. Essiy on the Architecture of the Hindus (Royal Asiatic Society). RSm R^z,

2. Selected Examples of Indian Art (Luzac & Co., London), Coomaraswa-ray,

3. The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon (Foulis, London, 5s.)- Coomarasw^my.

4. South Indian Bronzes (Luzac ^i). O. C. Gangoly.

5. Hindu Iconography (Madras £1). Gopinath Rao.
o. Hindu Music (London). Strougways,

7, Indian Sculpture and Painting (London). Havell.

8, Indian Architecture (London). Havell,

q. History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon (Clarendon Press, Oxford). Vincent Smith.

10. The Folk-Element in Hindu Culture. A contribution to Socio-religious Studies in Hindu

Folk-Institutions (Longmans) B. K. Sarkar and H. K. Rakshit.

11. The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology. (Panini Office gs. 6d). B. K. Sarkar.
I?. The Fundamental Unity of India (Longmans 3s. 6d) . Mookerji.

13. Modem Buddhism in Orissa (Probsthain. London). N. N. Vasu.

14. Panini. His Place in Sanskrit Literature (Reprint, Panini Office 6s. 8d.). Goldstucker.

15. Tlie Ashiadhyan of Pan int. The greatest work ou Sanskrit Linguistics (Panini Office.

pp. 1,700', ^3). Translated from the Sanskrit text of the sixth century B.C. by Vasu.

16. Orissa and Her Remains (Calcutta). M.Ganguly,

17. The Songs of India (Luzac is.). luayat Khan.

18. The Orion (Bombay). Tilak,

19. Indian Mythology (Luzac) Fausboll.

20. Indo-Aryans 3 vols (Stanford, London), Mitra.

21. History of Mediaeval Indian Logic (Calcutta University) Prof. Vidyabhushana.
2t. Mediaeval Sinhalese Art (London) CoomSraswamy.

23. Indian Artistic Anatomy (Luzac). A. N. Tagore.

24. Ajanta Paintings (Luzac jCa. 4S), Herringham.

25. Bronzes from Cej-lon (Oxford). Coomaraswamy.

26. Study of Indian Music (Longmans). Clements.

VERNACULAR LITERATURE IN ENGLISH,

I. The Abbey of Bliss (a novel by Bankim Chatterji, containing the national song,

Baitdc Mataiam, Calcutta 2s. 8d.). Translated by Sen Gupta from Bengali
a. Poems of Kabir (Macmillan 4s. 6d.). Translated by Tagore from Hindi.
3, Vidyapati (Love-poems, London). Translated by Coomaraswamy.

4 The Ramayana of TulsidSs. (Government Press, Allahabad), Translated by Growse
(im Hindi).

5. The Poems of Tukfiram. (Christian Literature Society, Madras). Translated by Fraser

and Marathe (from Marathi).

6. Tiruvfisagam of Manikka Vasagar. (Clarendon Press, Oxford). Translated by Pope

(from TSmil)

7. The Passing of Spring— a prose-poem ou the mysteries of lite (Macmillan), Translated

from the Bengali of Mrs. Das. with introduction by Tagore.
S. Culture of Devotion (Calcutta). Translated bj' Sen from Aswini Dutt's Bengali.
9. History of Bengali Language and Literature (Calcutta University 13s. 4d.) Sen.

HISTORY,

1. Imperial Gazetteer of India (London). Descriptive Volume, Historical Volume.
-^. Early History of India (Clarendon Press, Oxford). Vincent Smith.

3. Ancient India (History of Southern India). (Luzac) . S. K. Aiyangar.

4. A Peep into the Early History- of India (Bombay). Sir Bhandarkar.

5. The Early History of the Dekkan (Bombay). Sir BhandSrk&r

6. History of Indian Shipping and Maritime Activity (Longmans 7s. 6d). Prof. Mookerji.

7. The Cambridge History of India (5 vols. £3-10.)

S. History of India (Ghadiali Pole, Baroda 7s. 6d.) Dalai.

g. History of Aurangzib (Luzac & Co., London 9s. 4d). Prof. J. N. Sarkar.

JO. Anecdotes of Aurangzib and Historical Essays (Luzac 2s). Prof. J. X. Sarkar.

ri. History of the Saracens. (London). Ameer Ali.

12. Promotion of Learning in India, by Muhammadan Rulers (Longmans). Nareu Law.

13. The Arctic Home in the Vedas, Tilak.

14. Rise of Maratha Power (Puualekar, Bombay). Ranade.

15. History or the Punjab. Abdul Latif.

16. The Mundas and their country (Calcutta, 9s) S.C. Roy,
i\ The Oraons of Chota Nagpur (Calcutta) S. C. Roy.

iS. History of the Reign of Shah AlamCc 1759-1S06), Franklin, (Reprint, Pauiui Office as 8d.)

19. The Beginning of Hindu Culture as World-Power (A.D. 300-600). (Commercial Press.

Shanghai, is.) B. K. Sarkar.

20. The Antiquities of Orissa. Mitra.

2r. The Madras Presidency (Macmillan 2s 8d), Thurston.

'ta. The Palas of Bengal (Asiatic Society, Calcutta 14s) R. D. Banerji.

^3. Begams of Bengal (Calcutta is) B. Banerji.

RELIGIOaS MOVEMENTS.

t. Vedicludia (London). RaKozin.

2. Buddhist India (London). Rhys Davids,

3. Vaishnavism, .Shaivaisra and Minor Religious systems (Encyclopaedia of Indo-Aryan

Research, Strassburg) Sir Bhandarkar.

• 3

4 SankBr&chftryya, (Madras is). Aiyar and Tnttvabhushana.

5. Life of Ramanuia (Murthy, Madras). Goviiidacharya.

6. Chaitanya's Pilgrimages and Teacliiiig9(Liizac& Co., London, 3s. 8d). Prof. J. N. Sarkar,

7. The Sikh Religion (Clarendon Press Oxford). Maoauliffe.

8. History of Brilhmo Samdj (Calcutta). Sftstri.

g. Works of Rflmaniohan (Panini Oiflce, Allahabad).

10. Works of Swflmi Vivekftnanda (Mayavati Bditloni .

11. Works of Rflm Tirath (Delhi Edition).

12. Arya Sam&i and Swftnii Doyfinanda (Longmans 3S. 6d.). Rai

13. Speeches (Calcutta). KeshabJSen.

14. Hinduism Ancient and Modern (Panini Office 48.). Baijn&th.
i.S, Introduction to Hinduism (Panini Office JS.Sd.). Sen,

16. The Essentials of Hinduism (Leader Office, Allahabad 8d).

17. The Daily Practice of the Hindus (Pnnini Office is.Sd.). Vasu.

18. Prnnava-A'lda. The Science of the Sacred Word. (Benares). Translated from Sanskrit

by Prof. Bhagavan Das,

19. The Autobiography of Mahnrshi Devendranath Tagore. (Macmillan 7s. 6d).
JO. The Catechism of Hinduism (Pnnini Office).

21. Hinduism and India (Benares). Govinda Das,

11, The Master as I saw him (Life of Swflmi Vivekflnandn). Nivedita (Miss Margaret Noble).

J3. Rimkrishna ; His Life and Teachings (Scrihncr, New York). Maxmuller.

24. Principles of Tantra (Luzac) Avalon.

25. Tantra of the Great Liberation— Translated from San,skrit (Luzac). Avalon.
a6. Hymns to the Goddes.? (Luzac), Avalon,

27. KMt the Mother, (Udbodhana Office, Calcutta) Niveditft,

28. Myths of Hindus and Buddhi.st». (Ilarrap, London 15s.). Niveditft and Coomdraswftmy,

29. Hindu Psalms and Hymns (Ind. Rev. 4d,) Rftmaswftmi.

30. Ten Tamil Saints (Ind. Rev. is.) PiUai,

31. Aggressive Hinduism (Ind. Rev. 4d,) NiveditH,

32. Vaishnavite Reformers (Ind, Rev. is. 4d). Rfljagopftlachariar,

33. India's Untouchable .Saints (Ind. Rev, 6d,) Rdmaswftmi,

34. Kashmir Shaivaism (Luzac 2s. 6d,) Chatterji,

35. R.amanuja (Ind. Rev. is) Aiyangar, Rangachftrya, &c.

36. Madhwa (Ind. Rev. IS ) Aiynr and Row.

37. Buddha (Ind. Rev. IS.) Dharmopftla,

FOLK-LORE.

I. Folk-Tales of Bengal (London) I,al Behari Day.

J. Legends of the Punjab (T.ondon) Temple.

3. Old Deccan Days (London) Frere.

4. Wide Awake Stories, Bombay (London). Steel and Temple.

5. Folk-Tales of Kashmir (I.ondon) Knowles.

6. Indian Nights' Entertainnient (I.oiidon) Swynnertoii.

7. Indian Fairy Tales (London) Stokes.

8. The Folk-Talcs of Hindusthftn (Panini Office 39. 8d,) Vasu.

9. The .Adventure-sol Gooroo Noodle (Pnninipffice is.) Bnblngton,
JO. Lei^ends of VikramUditya (Panini Office, 2s. 8d). Singh,

«i. Folklore of the Telugus (Madras 4d,)

12. Tales of Tennali Raman (Madras 4d.)

INTERPRETATION OF INDIAN LIFE BY FOREIGNERS.

I. The Web of Indian Life (Longmans), Sister Nivedita. (Miss Margaret Noble,)

a. Studies from an Kastern Home (Longmans). ,, ,,

3. Foot Falls of Indian History (Longmans 79. 6d.). ,, ,,

4. Cradle-Tales of Hinduism (Longmans 59). ,, ,,

5. Indian Study of Love and Death (Longmans 29, 4, d.). ,, ,,

6. Civic Ideals (Longmans). „ ,,

7. New India (London), Cotton,

S, Impressions about India (London), Keir Hardie,

9, The New Spirit in India (London). Nevinson.

JO. The National Awakening in India (London). Hon. Ramsay Macdonald, M.P,

II. Essays on Indian Art, Industry and 1-Cducation (Indian Review Madras as.) Havell.

J2, My Indian Reminiscences (Indian Review 28). Deussen.

13. India (Laurie, London). Piere Loti.

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